Single White Female
by fangirl1982
Summary: Remember the storyline with Beth stalking Vincent and then Cate? Kinda inspired me. I don't own anything - well, Ali I do, and Caroline's last name. Other than that, nothing is mine. No point in suing me, I'm an impoverished student.
1. Chapter 1

Caroline MacMillan crossed the courtyard that the All Saints staff frequently patroned for their lunch breaks and stop when she saw her ex-boyfriend Jack Quade. She went to wave hello – their break-up had been as reasoned and amicable as any break-up could be – but stopped when she saw he was with a woman. Or more specifically, a woman she didn't recognise and a woman she immediately got a bad vibe off despite the fact they were a good five meters away. So that must be his new girlfriend, Ali, she thought. She had heard he was dating someone new – gossip was rife amount the hospital staff, and wasn't about to be confined to the ED Department where Jack was a doctor, and besides, there were plenty of catty people there who _loved_ to make sure Caroline knew Jack was dating someone new – but she wasn't jealous. Matter of fact, she was happy for Jack. If this Ali was good for him, more trusting of him than she had been – well, good for him. He deserved someone special – that someone special just wasn't going to be her.

Jack had her back to her, hugging Ali, and Ali had her head down, draped over Jack's shoulder. Suddenly she jerked it up so she was looking directly at Caroline. Caroline blanched. Could Ali know who she was? Possible, but unlikely. Ali didn't work at the hospital and Jack wasn't type to go pointing out exes. She knew this because he had been reluctant to show her any photos when she'd asked. He didn't see the point in being constantly reminded of past relationships.

So it was improbable that Ali knew who she was – but why was she looking at her like that? With resentment – with jealousy? Caroline shrugged it off and went on her way.

She was taking some pathology results to the ED – in the two months she and Jack had been dating, she'd gotten to know the staff well and always took the opportunity to deliver results personally. Gabrielle Jaeger, the Nursing Unit Manager as well as Jack's close friend and housemate, was manning triage. Caroline smiled when she saw the woman. "Conner Black's pathology results," she said, hanging them over, who in turn handed them to Bart West.

"You look like you've been sucking on lemons," Gabrielle noted.

"Saw Jack. With who I assume is Ali."

Gabrielle chuckled knowingly at that. "She's not the easiest person in the world to get along with," she conceded tactfully.

Caroline laughed at that. "You were never big on tact," she pointed out. "Tell me what you _really_ think."

"I don't like her," Gabrielle admitted. "He's really scared to express himself sexually right now, and I think she knows that, and is playing the religious card – all pure and touch-me-not. There's something really insincere about her – I don't think she's all sugar-and-sunshine that she makes out to be. When I see them together, he just doesn't _gel_ with her – like he did with you. I _miss_ you, you were good for him. Why did you break up? He'd never tell me."

Yeah, Gabrielle and the rest of the world wanted to know. Jack had been the epitome of tact when it had come to their breakup, simply saying that it had been a mutual decision and that it was none of anyone's business. Caroline had made a point not to give anyone any more information than that, but she trusted Gabrielle and besides, she had thought he would have told _her_, his best friend and housemate. She was kind of touched that his loyalty to the privacy of their relationship extended to Gabrielle. "I wouldn't have sex with him," she admitted. "With his reputation – even though I knew this totally different Jack – I could never get past the idea that he would lose interest in me after I'd slept with him. He was really understanding about it, but he pointed out that there was no point in us having a relationship if I couldn't trust him." She shrugged. "He had a point and he was far more mature about it than I was."

Gabrielle nodded. Jack had spent most of last year screwing any woman who would have him – including one of the best temp nurses she had ever had, Rachel Simms, and humiliating her into quitting. That was the part everyone knew. The part only a handful knew – herself, Jack's current boss Frank Campion, head of the ED and his former boss Mike Vlasek, head of Surgery, and Jack's old housemate Dan Goldman – was that Jack had been sexually abused for two years in his adolescence and last year, through sheer dumb luck, the guy had reappeared in his life. It had set off a series of traumatic, tragic events that had ended with Jack using women and alcohol as comfort.

Gabrielle had found this all out when Jack had woken up screaming for the forth night in a row. It seemed he didn't sleep well in beds he wasn't familiar with. He had confided everything in her, and everything had made so much more sense after that. His determination to prove his sexuality, his homophobia, his lacking in skills when it came to emotional intimacy – they were all the hallmarks of someone who had been abused by the very people who were supposed to have nurtured him as a child. For anyone who knew this, he was doing remarkably well in his emotional and psychological recovery.

But Caroline didn't know; Jack had never told her. So Caroline had never understood where his infamous promiscuity came from, and how hard Jack was working to overcome that. And when every other person in the hospital was all-too-eager to tell you about just how many women your boyfriend had slept with, well, Gabrielle couldn't blame Caroline for being nervous about taking that step with Jack. "Pity," she said. "You were good for him. Much better than Ali is."

She and Caroline chatted for a few minutes before Caroline got going. It wasn't that much longer after that that Jack returned from his lunch break. "You missed Caroline," Gabrielle said. "Apparently she saw you and Ali."

"Oh. Whoops. Was she upset?"

Gabrielle laughed. If Jack were anyone else, she would have thought he was supremely arrogant to assume that Caroline was so cut-up about the end of their two-month relationship (over three months ago) that seeing him with his new girlfriend would send her into a spin. But it was just Jack trying to do the right thing by a woman he had broken up with. "She was fine with it. Probably would have come and said hi – if Ali hadn't given her a death-glare."

"What are you talking about? She doesn't know who Caroline is."

_Says you_. But Ali, Gabrielle had found, had a way of finding out stuff. She had caught her going through Jack's stuff once; she had claimed to be looking for a pen. There was, in Gabrielle's opinion, something very off about Ali, and it wasn't just the no-sex-until-we-get-to-know-each-other pseudo-Christian stuff. She had made it clear she didn't like Gabrielle – or Charlotte – or Cate – or Rebecca – anyone else in Jack's life, as a matter of fact. She was possessive with a barely-concealed jealousy streak.

Instead of saying this, Gabrielle just shrugged. She had learnt not to criticise Ali; Jack had a blind spot when it came to her. "If you say so," she said. "You seeing her tonight?"

Jack smiled, and for a second, Gabrielle was a little bit jealous that such a grating piece like Ali could make him smile like that. God knew, he deserved to be happy after all that he'd gone through, but why did it have to be with someone that no-one but him liked? Wasn't it a universal law of friendship that if _no-one_ in your circle of friends liked your partner, then maybe the problem was with your partner, not all your friends? "Yeah," he said. "I'm meeting her parents. I hope it goes well."

Of course he was hoping it would go well. It was one of the conditions Ali had put on their relationship; she wouldn't sleep with him until he had met her parents approval. It was a compromise between her strong Christian values and his cynical atheist beliefs. And compromise, in Gabrielle's opinion, usual led to _no-one_ being happy. Did Jack really think that a nineteen-year-old virgin with strong Christian beliefs would be happy compromising them? Did Ali think she was going to be able to keep up with Jack sexually? They were going to end up massively colliding over their different beliefs, and neither of them seemed to get that.

Actually, scratch that. Gabrielle had a feeling Ali knew it – and that she was just playing Jack. She had no idea what the younger woman hoped to achieve though. The only thing Gabrielle could come up with was marriage, and Jack wasn't about to marry her... _was _he? Certainly, he was excited by Dan and Erica's wedding plans. Could he have seriously taken their happiness onboard?

If he had, there was no doubt Ali was playing on that. God, what Jack saw in her was beyond Gabrielle's comprehension. _Or maybe not_. Here was this pure, virginal young woman from a strong family home – exactly what Jack had craved since he had been young enough to realise that his family life wasn't the same as everyone else's. And Ali's no-sex edict put the brakes on Jack's sexuality; a sexuality he was a little afraid of, given how promiscuous he had been last year and how much emotional destruction that had wreaked on his soul. Taking sex off the table took the pressure off him.

It wasn't the right way to do it, Gabrielle knew. He was a sexual man, and using his girlfriend's spiritual beliefs to keep that in check wasn't healthy. Perhaps if Caroline had trusted him more, they would right now be in a healthy, loving sexual relationship – but that was done and he was with Ali now, and Gabrielle just hoped he saw how incompatible they were before things went _too_ badly wrong.

* * *

"You were great," Alexis – Ali – Nelson said to Jack later that evening in the bedroom of her studio apartment. Despite being a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, Jack had been raised Catholic – or at least raised in a Catholic environment, because when you were raised being beaten by an angry, cuckolded step-mother and raped by a paedophile tended to make you question God's existence – and he knew all the lip service. Her parents had loved him, and he had deflected questions about embracing Christianity with tact and charm so they hadn't been aware that he hadn't actually answered the question.

But Ali had been aware. She was frustrated by Jack's lack of interest in religion. _Science_ was not a religion. But she was sure she could change that eventually. After all, she had already changed him, hadn't she? Hadn't he been a notorious skirt-chaser until they had met? Hadn't he screwed everything in a skirt – including that _friend_ of his, Charlotte Beaumont?

_And look where that got her_, Ali thought viciously. _A single mother, never married_. That's what she got for putting out without a ring on her finger. Which was something she had no intention of doing with Jack – he just didn't know it yet.

Jack pushed her onto her back so he was on top of her and started kissing her in earnest. She _did_ love the way he kissed. She had always known he would be a good kisser – way better than the silly high university boys that she usually dated. Jack was twenty-eight; the perfect age for her. _And the perfect age to be married_. She had known all this the first time she had met him at a university bash that he had reluctantly attended because of his sister. Ali had been vaguely acquainted with Rebecca Rowe, but after that night, she had made a point to ingratiate herself with the other girl until they were close friends – close enough for Rebecca to include her in her thoughts of her brother, that what he really needed was a good woman to be in a relationship with.

Ali had heartily agreed, and worked to be everything Rebecca said Jack liked in a woman – intelligence, just a little sophisticated (but not a snob) – and most importantly, pure and innocent. It had set her apart from other women, and when Jack had first had a one-on-one conversation with her, he had been impressed with her intelligence and deep faith. Not to mention her wholesomeness; there had been something untainted about her that he had been drawn to. Just as Ali had intended.

So he had taken her out for dinner and been further impressed by her intelligence, sophistication and faith. Not to mention her sunny good looks. She was a young Jennifer Hawkins incarnate, all clear, fair skin, blue eyes and light blond hair. Not to mention slim, toned legs that could tangle up in his without being inappropriately sexual and delicate fingers that could run over his bare skin in that super-affectionate way that was only the slightest bit erotic.

She had been upfront with him about being a virgin, and that while she wasn't _that_ old-fashioned that she believed in holding out for marriage in a world where so many marriages ended in divorce anyway, she wasn't the type to jump into bed with just _anyone_. Jack had been happy to wait, and three months of a far more traditional courtship than Jack was used to had ensued, until she had told him that if he met her parent's approval, that would seal the deal for her.

So here they were. Jack was surprisingly nervous. Unused to waiting so long before he went to be with someone – it had never been more than two dates for him, he was a firm believer in making sure that you had chemistry before you invested any time in dating – it had, at times, been frustrating. The most he had ever gotten out of Ali was a hand-job. But conversely, he _liked_ having that restraint. He liked knowing that it wasn't going to happen, that he was free to pursue a relationship for the sake of a relationship.

But he was still looking forward to sleeping with her. And kind of in awe, because he had never been with a virgin – like attracted like and jaded people attracted jaded people – and the thought was – well, something he couldn't put into words. But he was honoured that this was something Ali wanted to do with him, especially since he couldn't return the honour.

He kissed her face, neck and collarbone and began undoing the buttons of her silk blouse. She had excellent taste in clothing – delightfully conservative but still stylish. He inched the material down to expose the red satin-and-lace bra that she wore underneath. It had enchanted Jack from the beginning how she could wear something so sexy under something so conservative. It was, he thought, a sure sign of the animal sexuality that lay dormant within her. "You're so sexy," he murmured huskily. He was becoming aroused, more than what he usually was when they were alone like this.

She felt his erection through his pants and smiled knowingly. Jack was just a man, when you got down to it. An older, smart, more sophisticated man, but a man nonetheless, who could be strung along with a few promises and hand-jobs. Actually – she hadn't wanted to go that far but Jack had pretty much insisted, and she hadn't wanted to deny him _too_ much, given what he was used to. And when he had the flavour...

Ali lay back, enjoying Jack's kisses. She had no doubt Jack was a fantastic lover who gave as much as he got. She was looking forward to finding out – once she got that ring on her finger.

Jack undid the last button of her blouse and ran his fingers along her flat, toned stomach for a few seconds before starting on the buttons of her pants. She tensed up at that. He knew not to go there. "Jack," she protested. He didn't stop. "Jack, slow down," she directed him.

"Sweetheart, it's fine," he reassured her. "Don't be nervous." Although he knew just how pointless it was telling her _that_. But at least he could make it the least awkward, most loving experience it could possibly be for her.

"Jack, it's not. I want you to stop."

Hearing the tone in her voice more than the word itself, Jack stopped and scooted up the bed, propping himself up on his elbow. "What's up?"he asked, trying not to sound disappointed. She had a right to be nervous.

"I don't want to do this."

"What do you mean?" Jack looked directly at Ali, seeing for the first time that her expression wasn't as open and honest as he had always thought. There was something _crafty_ there. Jack stared at Ali more searchingly, his mind ticking over. And it hit him that she had never intended on sleeping with him – at least not before she had something far bigger than a simple meeting with her parents. "What are you playing at?" he demanded to know.

Ali tried to look beguiling. "What are you talking about?" she asked innocently.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You never planned on sleeping with me, did you?" Ali shrank back slightly from him, sinking into the mattress at his tone. He was angry. She hadn't planned for him to be angry. She had planned for him to be so infatuated with her by now that he didn't care about waiting a bit longer. "Why didn't you just tell me that from the beginning?"

"Because you never would have gone out with me then," Ali said matter-of-factly, as if promising sex you had no intention of delivering on to found a relationship was not only common sense, but perfectly acceptable.

Angrily, Jack got up off the bed. For the first time, he was really seeing Ali – or at least a more truthful version of Ali than the one she had been showing him for the last three months. He was furious. Had she really thought he would marry her over sex? Had he really thought he would buy that much into things he had no belief in?

_Yes, she had_, he realised. She had thought that a few kisses and promises of something more down the track would have him hook, line and sinker. She had thought she could impress him enough with her prettiness and intelligence and innocence – which wasn't as innocent as he had thought – so he wouldn't mind when she told him she'd been lying to him all along.

"I'm going home," he said. "This is over."

"Good idea," she said, misunderstanding what he meant. "You should go have a cold shower."

He wanted to smack her. He had known that girls like her existed, but he had never actually come across one. A prick-tease, that's what she was. With delusions of grandeur. He should have listened to Gabrielle when she had said she had liked Caroline much better. Hell, at least Caroline had been upfront with her reasons for not wanting to sleep with him. "No, I mean This. Is. Over. This relationship."

Ali looked at him like a child being told there would be no dessert as punishment. "You're breaking up with me?" she asked plaintively.

"Yeah."

She pouted. "Because I won't sleep with you?" she asked.

"No, because you lied to me." Although she was correct enough. He would never have started dating her if he had known she had no intention of sleeping with him outside of marriage, but the lying bothered him more than anything. If she had simply changed her mind, he could have dealt. But to lie all along – he had instantly lost all respect for her and what kind of relationship could you have without respect and honesty?

She scrunched up her face and started to cry. "Ali, please – " he said, trying to swallow his irritation. Although he didn't know why he had expected more of her, given she was immature enough to resort to lying.

"You're breaking my heart, Jack," she sobbed. "You can't leave me – you _can't_." She threw herself into his arms, flinging her arms around his neck possessively. He had one found it charming the way she would hold him so tightly, but now he found it claustrophobic. She had lied about sex so he would continue to go out with her. What did that say about her? What did that say about what she would do for keep a boyfriend?

Thankgod he was getting out after three months.

He pushed her away as gently as he could. "Ali, please. This won't help. Look, I've got to go, but – I'll call you soon, OK?" he said, knowing that he would have to know even though he really wasn't interested in seeing her again – or speaking to her again. But maybe he'd feel different in a few days, once he'd had time to clear his head. Hell, maybe this would eventually be _funny_.

Helplessly, he left Ali crying. She'd get over it in a few days, he told himself. It wasn't like theirs had been an epic romance. It had been three months – and it wasn't even like they had slept together.

* * *

Needless to say, Gabrielle was surprised to see Jack home just a few hours after he had left. "Forgot something?" she asked innocently, then immediately regretted it. He could very well have forgotten something – like condoms. Jack flopped down on the couch, where Gabrielle was watching _Buffy_ – no, it was _Angel_, he realised on second glance – for the umpteenth time. Gabrielle cocked her head, momentarily distracted from Alexis Romanoff, and looked directly at Jack. He looked down. "Things didn't go as well as you hoped?" she asked.

"You could say that," Jack said dryly, and found himself telling Gabrielle everything.

"You're joking," Gabrielle said, although come to think of it, that didn't surprise her at all. There was something very off about Ali – the usual limits when it came to relationships didn't apply to her. If she wanted to snoop around to find pictures of ex, she did, and if she thought lying about sex would land her a boyfriend, she would. "I'm sorry," she said as sincerely as she could manage.

He grinned at her. "No, you're not," he said. "I know you didn't like her."

Gabrielle grinned back. "Was it that obvious?" Jack nodded, and Gabrielle shrugged, caught out. "OK, I didn't," she admitted. "She wasn't right for you. The Christianity thing was a big part of it. I think a big part of the appeal for you was knowing that you didn't have to worry about sex for a while – that the possibility was taken out of your hands. I think part of her appeal was this wholesome, virginal young woman from a happy family – everything you didn't have when you were twenty... or thirteen." Jack turned his head slightly so she couldn't see his face, and she knew she had got it in one. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so presumptive."

"You're not being presumptive. You're right. I mean, I like her – _liked_ her – liked whatever part of herself she chose to show me – but yeah... I liked the option of sex taken from me. I liked being able to just _date_ and not worry about sex."

"You don't have to date a Christian to get that from a relationship, Jack. You can go at your own pace."

"You're kidding, right?" Jack asked ruefully. "This is _me_. If I date anyone from the hospital or anyone who knows someone who knows someone from the hospital and I _don't_ go to bed with them on the first date, it eventually gets back to me that something was deeply wrong with them that I did." Actually, there was no 'eventual' about it. Things like that got around pretty quickly.

"Jack, you need to get out more. You need to find someone who cares about you and doesn't expect anything from you – and doesn't care about anything that's happened in the past."

That, he thought, was easier said than done. Having been sexually abused for two years as a teenager was not something you could talk about in the same vein as having gotten into a bit of trouble as school. (Ironically a problem that Jack had never had.) "I don't _have_ anyone like that – other than you," he said.

She looked at him sympathetically. She couldn't fathom how hard it was for him to make friends, let alone be able to confide in them what had happened to him. The only reason why the people who knew did was because things had become too much for him to bear. "If it means anything, you _do_ have me," she said. "You'll always have me."

He smiled at her. She had always been there for him – well, in the last few months that they'd been living together. He had something with Gabrielle that he'd never had before – an open and honest friendship. He could tell her anything and knew she wouldn't judge him. She knew all his favourite foods and the way he liked having his hair stroked when they watched a DVD. She was his best friend, and she knew him better than – well, than anyone he could remember. Even his sister, because no matter that they had been adults (well, almost – she had been seventeen) when they had first met, Bec was still his kid sister, whereas Gabrielle was his equal – in every way.

Suddenly he found himself looking at her in a way he never had before. He had known her for over two years and she had always been Gabrielle to him – Deanna's replacement, nurse, housemate, friend – Gabrielle, who always had his back and who knew him inside out and loved him anyway and just _got_ him.

How could he have missed it all along?

Gabrielle shivered under the intensity of Jack's look, but she didn't divert her eyes. She didn't want to. She had never realised how charismatic Jack was – but then, he had never looked at her in that way. All of a sudden she remembered just how much fun they had together – how he had this knack of making her feel good about herself and making her feel attractive and not the least bit too tall – just the right height for him. Not to mention the way he had a habit of looking at her like all the qualities she prided in herself – her intelligence, her loyalty, her professionalism – were being projected outward to create their own kind of beauty. "Jack," she whispered, suddenly very aware of how attracted she was to him.

"Gabrielle," he whispered back, and leaned in to kiss her.

The moment their lips met, there was electricity. She shuddered as his tongue flicked into her mouth, searching out hers. She responded eagerly and brought her hands inside his jacket, up his bare arms, feeling the muscles in his arms tense and relax under her touch. He was so much more sexually experienced than she was, but she didn't feel the least bit inexperienced kissing Jack. She felt like this was what all the movies were about, all hot and sexy but safe and secure at the same time. She was kissing her best friend and it was the sexiest thing in the world.

Jack jerked away abruptly. "Woah," he said. "Did we just –?"

Gabrielle nodded. "Yeah." Pity they didn't show this awkwardness in the movies where the best friends suddenly realised that they were meant for each other so they would have something to go on.

"Ah." Jack leaned back and chewed on his bottom lip. "I've never done that before," he said. "Actually, I've never had a close female friend _to_ do it before."

"So I'm your first?" she asked in her best attempt at a double-entendre.

"Something like that. So, uh – "

"Where do we go from here?" Gabrielle offered.

"Yeah."

"That depends. How do you feel about Ali?" she asked directly. She frowned a little when Jack took a few seconds to respond; the answer was _I have no feelings whatsoever_. "Jack!" she admonished him, feeling hurt and more than a little cheap. She had just kissed a guy who had broken up with a girl not an hour ago.

"I was just trying to think of the best way to say it. What I feel about her – what I _felt_ about her – isn't at all valid because it wasn't real. This – what we have – _this_ is real. You're my best friend. I don't think there's anything better than falling for your best friend."

She smiled brilliantly at him. It was the most perfect thing to say. "It's why they make so many movies about it," she said knowingly. "Do you – do you want to kiss me again?"

"I'd love to," he said, and leaned in to kiss her. Their second kiss was no less electric then their first. He pushed her gently down onto the couch so she was on her back and he was on top of her, and they started making out. He ran his hands down the sides of her body, resting them at her waist. He paused to take in the sensation of her body moving to her breathing. He brought his hands around her back and then up again, feeling the heat of her skin through her shirt. It was no more erotic than the way he had held Gabrielle dozens of times before, but this was so much more intoxicating.

He nuzzled his face in her neck and she arched it for easier access. She ran her hands down his back and up inside her shirt. He bucked up against her and she revelled in knowing she could make him react like that.

They made out on the couch for a few minutes before he pulled away slightly. "Can we slow down a little?" he asked breathlessly. No matter what lies his relationship with Ali had been founded on, he _had_ enjoyed dating – the pleasure of doing stuff together and holding hands and acting like a couple. "I just don't want it to be about sex straight away," was the best he could do at explaining.

She understood. She had seen how much Jack enjoyed dating, even if she hadn't thought much of Ali. And it would be fun to date – it wasn't something she and Steve had done a lot of. You didn't really 'date' when one-half of the couple was hell-bent on getting as drunk as possible. Yes, dating sounded like fun. "So what do we say at work then?" she asked.

_Work_. He hadn't thought about that. Christ, the amount of fodder he had given the hospital gossips over his dating colleagues – or simply sleeping with them. Terri, Charlotte, Deanna, Rachel, Caroline. "Can we keep it quiet for a bit?" he asked hopefully. "I just – don't want to chuck you in the deep end until we work out where we stand. You wouldn't believe what people say about me." And he only knew what people dared to say to his face.

She grinned at him. "Yeah, I would. I'm your housemate, remember? _Everyone_ comes to me for the gossip – or to share it."

He poked his tongue out at her. "You'll keep," he said, and he kissed her.

* * *

In her apartment, Ali cried and raged for hours after Jack left. She couldn't believe he had broken up with her – he – Alexis Nelson! Things had been going so well between them _and then he had broken up with her_.

Gradually, she composed herself. This was hardly the first time she had been initially denied something she had set her sights on – but she always got what she wanted in the end. She had been raised not to give up on her goals. And right now, her goal was Jack Quade.

He _would_ be hers.


	2. Chapter 2

"This feel strange," Jack commented as he and Gabrielle sat in the front of his car in the staff carpark of the hospital. It was OK for them to drive in together – they almost always did when their shifts coincided – but that was it. And Jack wasn't sure what he should do even if they _were_ going public. He had dated colleagues before, but it had usually been very hush-hush, and with Caroline, he had hardly seen her during work to be all coupley. But here and now, he and Gabrielle were meant to go into the ED as if they were the same friends they had been yesterday – as if they _hadn't_ spent the evening in a long and heated make-out session that had reluctantly ended in separate bedrooms.

And now here they were, pretending that they were still just friends. Hell, no-one else knew that Jack and Ali had even broken up. Shit, this would take some explaining. He hadn't thought about it last night – going to sleep thinking about how good Gabrielle felt in his arms and how he wanted to fall asleep with her – but he now realised how dodgy it would look, breaking up with one girl and hooking up with another in the same night.

And now that he had thought about it – how long would it take for people to snicker and draw comparisons to his relationship with Terri – and Charlotte? He was glad now that he and Gabrielle had decided to keep things quiet for a while. He knew the gossip would come eventually, but he would prefer to deal with it when he and Gabrielle were on more solid ground.

He kissed her quickly on the cheek and groped her hand. "Let's do this," he said. And they got out of the car and headed towards the ED as if they were nothing more than friends.

He was immediately struck by the way people looked at them when they entered the ED together, and he was confused. No way could anyone know about them yet - the ED gossip vine was good at ferreting information out, but not _that_ good. And then he realised – Gabrielle or Dan must have said something about his plans – well, his _hopes_ for last night, and naturally – especially if it had been Dan who talked – news like that was now public property.

Right on cue, Dan caught his eye and flashed him a shit-eating grin. "How did it go?" he asked.

No point in beating around the bush. "We broke up," he said flatly.

Dan did his best to look surprised. He, like everyone else, hadn't thought Ali was right for him – too religiously conservative, too young, too possessive. He, like everyone else, had preferred Caroline. "Really?" he asked. "How come?"

"It, uh... wasn't working out," Jack said vaguely.

Dan smirked. "She wouldn't sleep with you, huh?" he asked. Jack gave him a filthy look, which only confirmed Dan's suspicions. "What happened?" he asked. "Look, I promise I won't say anything – well, OK, I'll say something to Ricki, but _she_ won't say anything."

Jack gave Dan the short version of events. "I can't believe I didn't see it," he admitted. "And I can't believe she actually thought – " he shrugged. It seemed so implausible now. "I think a lot of what I liked about her was that the pressure was off," he admitted. "I think I was too busy liking that the pressure was off to realise that the details weren't really adding up."

"Mate, I'm sorry," Dan said. Not that his relationship with Ali had hit the dust – they clearly didn't have a future and in that case, the sooner they had broken up the better – but because Jack felt he had to restrain his sexuality to a point that he had _liked_ having a girlfriend who wouldn't sleep with him.

Jack shrugged. "I'll deal," he said.

Dan looked at him quizzically. Jack was taking this remarkably well, even if he _had_ been the one to break it off. His longest relationship in God knew when and he was acting like it was no bigger deal than his sister blowing him off over a movie date? He wondered if it had something to do with Gabrielle. The two of them were very close, and she would have been his first contact after breaking up with Ali. And she was much better with words than Dan was. No doubt she had talked him through it, made him realise that the relationship wasn't meant to be and that there was someone better out there for him. Yeah, that would have been it.

Gabrielle was good for him; everyone said so.

"Do you think he suspected anything?" Gabrielle asked him later on that when they were in the tea-room together. Jack was on his lunch break and Gabrielle was taking a few minutes while it was quiet to grab a cup of tea after a troublesome patient. She paused to look at the way he had his palm pressed against the page of the book he was reading, and the way he had immediately stopped his reading when she had entered. He had always done it, but now it seemed that little bit more romantic.

"No. He's too busy thinking it was about bloody time. Was I the _only_ one who liked her?" he asked.

"She was what you thought was good for you," Gabrielle said pragmatically. "And hey, you don't even have to feel bad about dating her while you didn't know what you wanted – or needed – since she was lying to you the whole time."

"Guess she didn't really know what she wanted either," Jack said philosophically. "At least not in an adult way." Which really was what a lot of relationship mistakes boiled down to – knowing what you wanted – things both ways – and lacking the maturity to realise that you _couldn't_ have things both ways. Jack had wanted a sexual relationship but a relationship where the pressure to _have_ sex was off; Ali had wanted an older, sophisticated, _sexy_ boyfriend without actually _having_ sex.

It was lucky the relationship had come to an end without too many tears. In fact, Ali was probably right now at one of her church groups finding someone more appropriate for her. The knowledge made Jack feel good.

Gabrielle eyed Jack's lunch. "Is that your potato salad?" she asked hopefully.

He nodded. "Want some?" he asked. She scooted over so she was sitting next to him and ate from the fork he was using; it seemed so pointless to get her own fork, given how much they had already shared.

"God, this is nice," she said, mouth full. It was way nicer than the one _she_ made.

"I can't believe farmgirl never learnt to make potato salad," he teased. Farmgirl was his name for her.

"I know how to make it, just not the way you do." She opened her mouth for Jack to spoon – well, fork – more potato salad into her mouth.

"Am I interrupting something?" Charlotte's voice came from the door of the tea-room, slicing through their reverie. They both jumped slightly, looking very guilty – as if they were up to something more than just mucking around as mates. Charlotte had heard about Jack and Ali's break-up, of course, and she wondered if his friendship with Gabrielle had had anything to do with it.

"Um, no," Jack said. "Something up?" he asked, then felt stupid, because he was on break, so Charlotte was no doubt after Gabrielle.

"Yeah, it's Ali. She's at triage, wants to speak to you." Jack made a face. "Please?" Charlotte asked. "She's likely to sit there all day if you don't talk to her. She seems pretty upset."

Jack didn't see that he had any choice. He got up and made his way to triage where Ali was waiting. She _did_ look upset, and Jack immediately felt bad about that. Then he felt irritated for feeling bad. He had broken up with her, but it wasn't like she had given him much choice. Who the hell lied about something like that? More to the point, who the hell lied about something like that – and expected a person _not_ to break up with them? "Ali," he said as good-naturedly as he could manage, because it really was appropriate for her to be showing up at the hospital, either. At least she had caught him on his break; Frank frowned most heartily on interruption of the personal kind encroaching on _his_ ED. Which was kind of funny given he had left Zoe and Gabrielle in the lurch while he chased Eve all the way to France, but that was another story entirely.

He grabbed Ali's arm and steered her outside. There was a small garden a few meters from the outside of the ED entrance and Jack steered her towards it. "What's up?" he asked her when they were safely away from the prying ears of any of his colleagues. "How are you holding up?" he asked a little more gently. Ali might have lied to him, but maybe he had expected too much of her, given she was only twenty. He had always liked older women for that reason – they were more inclined to know what they want and have zero interest in stuffing around on anything else. Maybe he had applied too high a standard to someone who was younger even than his kid sister.

Ali's lower lip trembled, and tears filled her eyes. "I miss you so much," she said dramatically.

He wondered if he had ever been this dramatic over a breakup? Well, OK, there had been the whole sleeping-with-Charlotte thing, so maybe he couldn't exactly talk, but – he wished he didn't have to deal with this. He wished she would just go quietly and find someone who was right for her. I.e., _not_ an older, cynical surgeon who thought the idea of waiting until marriage for sex was a croc of shit. "Ali, I'm really sorry," he said. "I wish things could have worked out better for us."

"I'll have sex with you," she blurted out.

It was so sudden and so not-what-he-expected that for a second, Jack just stared at her, wondering if he had managed to amalgamate several different conversations he'd had with both Gabrielle and Ali on several different occasions into one, five-word sentence. "What?" he asked.

"I'll have sex with you," she offered. "I love you, Jack, and I don't want you to leave."

The offer was so left-of-centre that Jack wanted to laugh. It sounded like something out of a bad teen movie. Not that he watched them, but he had read a paper Rebecca had written on about popular culture. Then he realised Ali was perfectly serious and any desire to laugh died a quick death. She truly believed that the only problem in their relationship was sex – or a lack thereof. And maybe he was partly to blame for that. They had certainly had a good time, and he had broken up with her when he realised she had lied to him – and she had lied to him about her intention to sleep with him, and that had been the only trouble they'd ever had, so maybe, in her mind, her refusal to have sex with him was the only reason for their relationship not working. "Ali," he said. "I'm flattered, I really am – but it's not going to work."

"I don't understand."

_Of course she doesn't. She's twenty. She was in high school eighteen months ago_. "Ali," he said as gently as he could. "You want something from me that I can't give you. You're offering to sleep with me so I'll still be your boyfriend when what you truly want is to be married. And I'm not the marrying kind – not yet, anyway. How will you feel if we break up in _another _ three months and you've compromised something that was so important to you? And even if we _did_ get married in the future – I'm never going to be what you want in a husband. I don't believe in the stuff you believe in."

"You could," Ali cried. "You've just never had any reason to believe."

"No, I couldn't. I respect your beliefs – but I don't share them. I'm never going to. Trust me, Ali, you're going to find someone who's way more compatible for you than I am. Do you really want to give up something that so important to you to someone who doesn't even have the same values as you? Don't you want to share that with someone who appreciates what it means?"

"Yes," Ali sniffled.

Jack was relieved, taking this to meant that she was seeing things his way. Now hopefully she'd go home and talk to her friends who shared the same values as her and find a guy who shared the same values as her and live happily ever after and with any luck, things were still quiet and Gabrielle was still on her tea break. "Good girl," he said.

Ali held out her arms, and he knew she wanted a hug. He did so reluctantly – not only did he not particularly _want_ to, but Gabrielle had an acute sense of smell and would be sure to pick Ali's scent up off him – but if it made her happy. "Things will be alright," he said. "It'll be – " then he screamed as Ali dug her teeth into his neck. "You – mental – _bitch_!" he gasped, trying to pull her off him, but she had dug her teeth in deep.

The pain was excruciating, almost as bad as when Patrick had first raped him – but much more in the present. Later he would think that if Gabrielle knew exactly what this felt like, she wouldn't think _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ was so cool. Shaking with the pain, he had the sense to bring his hand up to where her mouth was and use his fingers to pry her jaw open wider and push her off him. Immediately his neck started flowing with blood. "You crazy bitch!" he said again, and for the first time, he saw the hatred in her eyes. No, hatred was the wrong term – the _crazy_ in her eyes. She was certifiable.

"Baby, I'm sorry," she started. "You just made me so _mad_."

He wanted to smack her. She seriously had no concept that she had done something wrong. She just thought that he had made her mad by breaking up with him so she had the right to draw blood. "I. Do not. Want. To see. You. Again," he said slowly. "You come near me, and I'll press charges against you," he said. It was a hollow threat – he wanted nothing more to do with her, and that included the aggro of having her charged – but it sounded good. Bringing his hand up to his neck to apply pressure and stem the flow of blood, he made his way back to the ED, leaving his crazy ex-girlfriend staring after him, not quite comprehending why he was so angry. After, all, _he_ had broken up with _her_ – what did _he_ have to be pissed off about?

"What in God's name happened?" Zoe asked when she saw him, blood trickling between his fingers.

"She bit me," Jack said. "Like a rabid dog. Do we have a prophylactic for that?"

"Jack, you can't get rabies from another human," Zoe told him.

"It's transmitted by warm-blooded animals, you can too," Jack said pedantically.

"Jack! What happened?" Gabrielle asked, emerging from the tea-room and seeing her new boyfriend – was he her boyfriend? she wasn't sure – with his hand over his neck, blood dripping through his fingers. It was decidedly less cool and dramatic then when she saw it on _Buffy_.

"Lover's tiff," Zoe said wryly, leading Jack to an empty bed. Gabrielle followed them, not caring in the slightest that in doing so, she might look like more than a concerned friend. "Hand," she said to Jack, and he removed his hand from his beck. "She's got quite a bite," Zoe said. "What did you do?"

"Oh, so this is somehow _my_ fault?" Jack asked irritably. "My mental ex-girlfriend bites me like she's Queen of the Damned of something and _I_ did something to deserve it?"

"Of course not. And if you want something for the pain, just say so."

"I'm fine," Jack grunted, proud as ever.

"Poor baby can't admit he's in pain," Gabrielle teased.

Jack shot her a look that said _you deal with being raped and then we'll talk about pain thresholds_ and Gabrielle decided it was best not to press it anymore. Instead, she threaded her fingers through Jack's and didn't say anything when he squeezed her hand tight in response to Zoe's ministrations.

Zoe missed neither the fact that Jack was trying to act like he wasn't in the least bit of pain or the way Gabrielle had immediately taken his hand – or how tightly he was holding onto it. It didn't take her long to apply stitches and dress the wound, giving him a shot of broad-spectrum antibiotics – at his insistence – for safe measure. "I want you both in my office," she said quietly. Gabrielle opened her mouth to object to the 'my' office – the office the three of them shared had actually started out as solely the NUM's office, but when the HoD's had been temporarily closed several years ago because of maintenance, Frank had decided to 'share' it and had never bothered to go back to his own office. So while she held no hope of ever getting exclusive use of it back, Gabrielle wasn't about to forget that it was still _supposed_ to be exclusively her office, and she resented it whenever Zoe – and far more frequently, _Frank_ – referred to it as 'their' office. But she was silenced by Zoe's look, and she and Jack followed her into the office, unlocking hands as they went. "_Please_ don't tell me that little moment before has _anything_ to do with what happened with Ali?" she asked pointedly the secondly the door was shut. Jack and Gabrielle looked guilty. "And don't try to tell me that there _wasn't_ a moment, there, either. Jack, I believe Frank made you promise not to get involved with any of his staff – made you sign something to that effect." They both knew Frank's stupid contract had no legal standing – you couldn't exactly expect a contract while forbade a consenting adult from getting involved with another consenting adult – but Jack had signed it nonetheless, as a sign of good faith more than anything, only six months ago.

Gabrielle couldn't let _that_ go unchecked. "I'm not Frank's staff," she said loftily. It pissed her off whenever Frank treated her as such. And what did Frank think he could do, anyway? Put a blanket ban on all relationships? _Someone ought to tell Dan and Erica that, then_, she thought. No way could Frank tell them who they could and couldn't date, contract-with-no-legal-standing or not.

"Don't argue semantics," Zoe said shortly. "And don't get off the subject. Does this thing you guys are up to have _anything_ to do with Ali, uh... being so upset?"

"You mean _going postal_?" Jack asked. His neck was throbbing and he was beginning to wish he hadn't been so quick to tell her that he didn't need painkillers. Zoe looked pointedly at him. She had no interest in him trying to weasel out of telling the truth by trying to make Ali look bad – which admittedly, she did, but she had far more of Zoe's sympathy if her 'going postal' had been caused by Jack cheating. "No, it doesn't," he said finally. "I broke up with her last night. It had nothing to do with Gabrielle."

"Yet here you are, holding hands and looking decidedly _not_ like _just friends_," Zoe pointed out.

"I know it looks bad," Jack admitted. "But we started talking when I got home and – hey, it's none of your business anyway," he objected.

"No," Zoe agreed. "But you can talk to me and _I'll_ talk to Frank – or you can go and talk to Frank directly," she offered.

It didn't take long for Jack to realise that talking to Zoe was far better than talking to Frank, and he told Zoe everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. "I know it's lousy timing, but I didn't do anything wrong. I'd never cheat. I've seen what it does."

Zoe eyed Jack curiously. There was a note in Jack's voice that she didn't quite understand. Of course, she didn't know much about Jack's childhood – that he had witnessed the destruction to everyone around him that Ned Quade's infidelities had caused, and had long ago vowed never to put someone through that. His night with Charlotte had been the closest he had ever come to cheating – and he and Terri had been broken up by that point. This thing with Gabrielle might be lousy timing, but it wasn't the _cause_ of his breakup with Ali. And Zoe believed him, even if she wasn't aware of the history behind his strong feelings against infidelity. "I believe you," she said finally. "But I hope you guys know what you're in for. There are going to be _plenty_ who won't."

"We're well aware of that, Zoe," Gabrielle spoke up. "It's why we're trying to keep quiet about it."

"Then try harder. Holding hands like that isn't doing you any favours."

Gabrielle had snaked her hand back into Jack's subconsciously, and the two broke apart immediately, looking guilty. "Gabrielle, get back to work," Zoe ordered, but not as harshly as she could have. "Jack, I want you to go home."

"I can work!"

"Not on morphine you can't."

"I don't need any painkillers, Zoe. I have a high pain threshold. I broke a lot of bones when I was a kid."

Zoe started to argue, then decided to do things Jack's way. "See me again in an hour," she compromised. "We'll asses you then."

By the end of the hour, Jack's neck was screaming with pain – and reverberating it down his body. He was in agony, so much that he took Zoe's prescription for morphine with very little protest. "Go and lie down, and I'll see what I can do about getting Gabrielle off early. You are _not_ driving in your condition." Either he was in too much pain without the morphine or too doped up without it – and she had an obligation as his boss as well as a conscientious human being to make sure he didn't drive.

Obediently, Jack found an unused consult room and lay down, drifting into a drug-induced sleep. He woke up to Gabrielle watching him. "Hey," he said. "I was dreaming about you."

"Really?" she asked. "Something nice?"

"It was based on that stupid episode of _Buffy_ when Willow's saying gibberish in her sleep and Oz is watching her."

Gabrielle frowned. "That's the episode where he cheats on her."

"Well, I didn't get that far, did I?" he asked with a grin. Groggily, he sat up in bed. "C'mere." Obediently, Gabrielle walked towards him so he could wrap his arms around her waist.

She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Like I'm half-awake. I dunno how Mike ever managed to get addicted to this. But no pain. I just... hate being so groggy."

"That's OK. You have me to take care of you."

He smiled. "That sounds good," he said. "Are you off now?"

She nodded. While Zoe might not approve of their burgeoning relationship, she didn't want Jack attempted to drive home, and since he and Gabrielle had come in together, she figured it was for the best if she just organised for Erica to cover her shift. "C'mon. I'll take you home and make you dinner."

Groggily, Jack followed Gabrielle out of the consult room and the ED and into the staff carpark where he'd parked his car that morning. "Be careful with it, farmgirl," he said, a little grumpily, when Gabrielle took his keys off him.

"I've driven cars far more difficult to handle than this thing," Gabrielle teased. She could handle a truck, a van, a tractor, Jack's city car was no great challenge to her. But Jack, typical of men, couldn't stand the thought of anyone else – let alone a _girl_ – handling their car. She drove them home and Jack settled on the couch, secretly pleased to have Gabrielle look after him.

She made them dinner and held him comfortable afterwards. They didn't even bother to put on a DVD; the silence was comfortable. "How's the pain?" she asked. He was becoming more alert, which meant the morphine was probably wearing off, which meant the pain was likely coming back.

"Getting worse," he admitted.

"Take another pill and go to bed," she said in a voice that would brook no argument.

"I will," he said. "I just... wanted to apologise about today. I wish I hadn't dragged you into this." He wanted to say it while he was alert – well, as alert as he was going to get.

"You weren't to know, Jack. It wasn't your fault. I don't blame you."

"Yeah, if I'd known she was mental like that, I wouldn't have gotten involved with her in the first place," Jack said. "I just wish this were easier for you. I hated the way Zoe had a go at you."

"What about you?"

Jack shrugged. "I have a terrible reputation anyway. I've stopped caring about what people say about me – at least when it comes to my private life. I'm just worried about you, and what people will say about you."

"Are you sorry it happened?" she asked.

"No, of course not. It was perfect. _You're_ perfect. I just wish the timing was better."

She squeezed his hands. "It doesn't matter, Jack. It really doesn't. All that's important is that we're together now. And speaking of now – I want you to take another pill and go to bed." She used that same non-nonsense tone that she used on her staff, and Jack knew better than to try and argue with her. "Do you want me to stay with you until you go to sleep?" Jack nodded. He was in no position to consummate their relationship – in the same way he wasn't in a position to drive, either in too much pain or too groggy – but falling asleep with her sounded nice.

Gabrielle had been in Jack's room – well, the spare room that she had cleared out for Jack several months ago – since he had moved in. At first, he had found it hard to break out of the habit of keeping to his own room after months of living with Dan – and Erica, by extension. So her knocking on his door to say goodnight had led to her spending an hour or more some night, sitting on the edge of his bed, his attempt to read abandoned to easy conversation. But now it felt strange to be in his room. This wasn't just her spare bedroom or her housemate's room anymore. This was her _boyfriend's_ room. Her boyfriend's _bed_. The bed that she was spending the first night in – even if it _was_ in a nonsexual context.

"You feel nice," Jack said as he brought her into his arms. "I think I don't want you to sleep in your own bed ever again."

"Yeah? What happens when we fight?"

"We won't fight. I hate fighting. It interferes with cuddle time."

Gabrielle smiled at that. She had never pegged Jack as someone who liked hid cuddles. She settled into his arms and felt him fall asleep, gradually drifting off herself.

* * *

Jack's bedroom was located at the side of the house, with a meter or so separating the wall of the house from the retaining wall of the block. Because he'd never slept well in absolute darkness and because it was impossible for the neighbours to look into his room, he usually left the curtain open to let the moonlight in.

Ali had discovered this soon into their relationship. She had wanted to make sure that he was home when he said he was, and not spending his nights with anyone else. She had been insanely jealous when she had discovered that he allowed – even seemed to _welcome_ – Gabrielle into his room, onto his bed – but she had consoled herself with the fact that he always slept alone.

_Not tonight_. He had broken up with her yesterday and today he was in bed with another woman – in bed with _her_. She raged inwardly and wanted to break through the window and confront them there and then.

But she didn't. She would bide her time. Jack was just being a man, indulging in her desires with some tramp who didn't respect herself. It was _she, Ali_ that he loved. In the end, everyone would know that.

And Gabrielle Jaeger would regret ever stepping on her turf.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack lifted Gabrielle up onto a table – amusingly enough, this was actually the disused HoD's office, the one Frank had never bothered to reclaim and as such, had never been renovated – so she could wrap her legs around him the way she liked. Though it was better when they were lying down and could tangle their legs together.

"We should stop," she murmured half-heartedly as he rained kisses down her face and neck. She ran her fingers through his hair, curling the ends around the tips of her fingers, taking in the silky texture of freshly-washed hair. She dropped her fingers slightly and traced the square bandage over his neck. There was something kind of sexy about it.

"Uh-huh," he agreed. She had this way of squirming with pleasure when he nuzzled her neck a certain way. It was difficult to remember they were both supposed to be at work. It was so hard to work with her, be close to her, and have to pretend like nothing was going on, that pulling her into the abandoned HoD's office had proved too great a temptation.

So here they were, holed up in the office, hands – and mouths – all over each other. "I can't get enough of you," he murmured huskily.

"And you haven't even slept with me yet," she teased.

"I know. I don't know what's gotten into me." He tugged at her shirt so he pulled it out of her pants, and slipped his hands under her shirt, caressing her bare skin. Until they had gotten involved romantically, he hadn't realised how fit she was. Despite her curvaceous build, there wasn't an ounce of fat on her, and he ran his hand over smooth, taut skin. "You're the sexiest woman I've ever met."

And the thing was, Gabrielle thought giddily, Jack said that in such a way that she believed him. And he seemed genuinely content just to make out with her. Was there really something in her that he liked – maybe even _loved_ – so much that he no longer felt the urge to go in for the kill, the conquest, and enjoyed holding hands and making out – even if it _was_ in an abandoned, partially-renovated office?

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" came Frank's booming voice from the doorway, and the two jumped apart guiltily – even more so then when Zoe had cottoned onto their relationship, despite the fact that Zoe had since filled Frank in. Frank hadn't been impressed, but had more or less held his tongue. Which for Frank meant perversely keeping them separated.

"Sorry," Jack said, remembering all-too-clearly that Frank had caught him in this same office four years ago with Terri Sullivan. He stepped in front of Gabrielle; if Frank wanted to have a go at them, he could deal with Jack. "It was my fault."

Frank wasn't buying any of Jack's attempts to take the blame. "What, my NUM, who up until now has told me what I could do with my authority when it clashed with hers, had no will of her own when it came to going at it in a storage closet?"

Jack could sense Gabrielle about to say something that would only get Frank more pissed off, and he reached behind her, locating her hand with unerring instinct, squeezing it, silently telling her to keep quiet. "We're sorry, it won't happen again," Jack said. Frank just grunted and walked off. "Sorry," Jack said, turning to Gabrielle. "I shouldn't have gotten you into this."

"It's fine." Gabrielle raked her hand through her hair, dislodging several of the pins that kept it up. Jack retrieved them and started putting them back in. "I just – hate the way he looked at me. Like I was so – _unprofessional_. I don't know how you resisted the urge to smack him. I think I would have if you hadn't been in my way."

"That's 'cos you don't have my experience at this sort of thing," Jack said wryly. "I think Frank _expects_ me to get involved with his staff at this point." He slid the last pin into place. "There, good as new. No-one can tell what you've been up to."

Jack spoke too soon. When they went back into the main part of the ED, they were met with looks and grins. At first Jack thought Frank had spilled the beans on them, then he realised that people had suspected something for sometime now, and then disappearing together and then re-emerging at the same time – not even bothering to stagger that re-emergence – was bound to set tongues wagging.

He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. When two people lived together and were as close as he and Gabrielle were, naturally people would talk. Especially given the animosity that had existed between Steve and Jack from day one; that it was the result of two very different alpha-male personalities was beside the point, people only saw that the ex and the current love interest hated each other's guts. The only reason they hadn't talked _too_ much was because Jack had been in two relationships in quick succession; first with Caroline, then with Ali.

But now he was single, and that meant a free-for-all as far as the gossip went. Since there was no point now in hiding their relationship, Jack slipped his fingers through Gabrielle's and squeezed her hand. "Don't worry about it," he whispered to her. "We'll get through this. Just keep your head high and work as if nothing's happening."

Gabrielle nodded slightly and she and Jack went their separate ways, each working on their separate patients. They were both aware that people were talking about them – and calling who they could in other departments – and both tried to act as if it didn't matter.

Dan lasted less than an hour before he sided up to Jack. Jack was surprised he had lasted that long; staying away from gossip had never been Dan's strong point. Jack had never forgotten the way Dan had been eager to tell all and sundry that he was the father of Charlotte's unborn child. "So you and Gabrielle, huh?" Dan asked with a sly grin. He had a vested interest in seeing Jack and Gabrielle together – other than Jack being happy. He had started a bet a few months ago – when Jack had been in-between his relationships with Caroline and Ali – about when they would get together. Dan had said within a month of him splitting with Ali.

"Me and Gabrielle," Jack said evenly.

"Since when?" Dan asked. Jack told him. No sense in trying to lie; it had only been a few weeks anyway, and for most people, a few weeks was almost as bad as the few hours it had actually been. Dan whistled when Jack told him. "I knew you guys had something special, but – man, no wonder Ali was pissed."

Jack sent him a filthy look. "I didn't do anything," he insisted, although he knew that wasn't going to matter much. He had given the gossips too much to talk about over the years to expect many people to believe him now that he _hadn't_ cheated on his ex – particularly an ex who everyone knew to be a big Christian while Jack was highly sexed. But still – he had expected _Dan_ to believe him.

"Sorry," Dan said. He knew how touchy Jack was about infidelity. "I believe you. And I'm happy for you. I think you guys are good for each other."

Jack eyed Dan suspiciously. He seemed a touch _too_ happy in Jack's book. "Do you have _money_ riding on this?" he asked. Dan looked sheepish, and Jack resisted the urge to have a go at his friend. Dan couldn't help being Dan – a nosy gossip who saw nothing wrong with placing bets on when two colleagues (one of whom was his _boss_) would get together. "Forget it," he said. "It's done now."

Dan was relieved. Jack could have a short temper at times. "You guys should come over for dinner sometime," he suggested. "A double date."

Jack actually liked the idea. "But I think it's best if _you_ come to _our_ place," he amended. "I remember your cooking." Dan saw absolutely nothing wrong with subsisting on two-minute noodles, microwave dinners and take-out.

Dan nodded. He agreed with Jack – at least as far as Jack and Gabrielle were far better cooks than he and Erica were – and was relieved that Jack seemed to have forgotten that Dan had put money on when he and Gabrielle would get together. Well, not _forgotten_ exactly – Jack had the memory of an elephant, especially when it came to friends acting less-than-supportive – but at least he wasn't making a big deal over, and chances are, now he wouldn't. "Hey, doesn't Rachel know?" he asked.

Jack's eyes widened as he thought of his former one-nighter. He hadn't spoken to Rachel since he had started dating Caroline had had felt he owed the nurse a heads-up. Rachel had treated him coldly and Jack hadn't sought her out since.

But she had held Gabrielle in very high esteem and deserved to know something like this before it became public knowledge. Or rather, _had_ deserved to know. Jack doubted he could stop it from getting to her ears first by the gossip vine now., and as far as he knew, Gabrielle hadn't said anything to her, either. She hadn't said anything to him about it, and it wasn't the kind of thing she would keep from him. "Shit," Jack said, raking his hand through his hair distractedly. He could only imagine how Rachel would take learning something like this via gossip. Who knew _what_ she might be told? "Damn. I should have said something weeks ago."

Thinking it wouldn't do much good but figuring he owed it to her anyway, Jack located Rachel later that day. She had a permanent position in Oncology now. Jack had mostly gone out of his way not to run into her, but now he went out of his way _to_ meet her. He was relieved when Rachel looked far less hostile to see him than she had six months ago. He wondered if this meant she hadn't heard about him and Gabrielle yet. _Unlikely_. Rachel would be the _first_ person people would want to tell about something like that. "I wanted to tell you – " he started.

"About you and Gabrielle," Rachel said. "I know. Zoe told me weeks ago."

Jack looked blank. "_Zoe_ told you?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah. She said I had a right to hear it from someone who _wasn't_ a malicious gossip."

"Oh." This made Jack feel very small. _He_ should have been upfront with Rachel about the fact he was seeing someone that she had greatly admired.

"It's fine," Rachel said. "It's nice Zoe told me – woulda been nicer if you had told me yourself – " she couldn't resist adding, seeing him squirm over her admonishment, "but it didn't upset me. Not like it did when you started seeing Caroline." She looked thoughtful for a second, knowing what Jack was about to ask. "I saw what she went through when you guys were together. You have the most _awful_ reputation, you know."

"I'm well aware of that. It's why we broke up, pretty much. She couldn't trust me."

"I can't say I blame her," Rachel admitted. "Did you ever – " she struggled to ask the question that so many people were wondering.

"No." Jack shook his head. "That was the crux of it. She didn't trust me. I understood why, but I didn't see any point in a relationship if she couldn't trust me. It was quite amicable. We still talk from time to time."

"But Gabrielle trusts you?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah. She's good for me."

Rachel was surprised that she could laugh about that. "So I hear," she said. Everyone said Gabrielle was a steadying influence on Jack – punch-ups with Steve Taylor notwithstanding. And she had always liked Gabrielle – she was a good boss who knew when to be lenient and when to be firm. If anyone knew how to keep Jack in line, it was Gabrielle. And no matter how secure Gabrielle was in their relationship, people were going to talk about them, and that was something that would get to even the most secure of people.

It wasn't a situation Rachel wouldn't have liked dealing with. That was something she had come to understand during Jack and Caroline's two-month relationship. It took quite a woman who could take everything that came with being Jack's girlfriend in her stride. "What was Ali like?" she asked.

Needless to say, Jack was surprised. "Why?" he asked.

"Just curious. From what I heard, she wasn't your type."

"She wasn't," Jack admitted. "I think I liked being with someone knowing that the pressure was off to have sex. I wasn't dealing with my crap as well as I could. Maybe I deserved this," he added, waving absently in the direction of his neck.

"She really bit you?" Rachel asked.

"Like she thought she was from an Anne Rice novel. Except she didn't read Anne Rice. Didn't read anything to do with the supernatural. Or the occult. Whatever it was." Popular fiction had never been his forte.

"Cultural snob," Rachel teased. She was surprised at just how OK she was with Jack and Gabrielle's relationship. He looked happy, and she knew she couldn't have made him happy like that. She realised she had dodged a bullet there.

"Thanks for understanding," Jack said a few minutes later. He was pleasantly surprised at how well things had gone – and grateful. He hadn't done the right thing by Rachel, he knew.

"It's nothing," she said. "I'm glad you're happy."

Impulsively, he hugged her. She was so short, he thought. That made him smile, because it meant he was so used to being around Gabrielle that anyone under five-eight was short...

... From ten meters away, partially concealed by a tree – and it wasn't like Jack was looking for her anyway – Ali watched him. She scowled to see him talking and laughing with that girl, Rachel Simms. Yes, she knew who she was. She had found out by rifling through Jack's journal. He had admitted that he had slept around a bit in the past, but she hadn't expected it to be that extensive.

She eyed the woman critically. There was nothing special about her. Ali bet the only thing she had going for her was her easiness – why else would a guy like Jack be interested in her if not for the fact she put out without much persuasion?

If Jack hadn't associated with women like that, he would never have left her, Ali thought bitterly. Suddenly, she was filled with hatred for what Rachel represented; Jack's corruption.

* * *

Gabrielle ran into Rachel the next day. "I'm really glad you're OK with this," she gushed.

"It's fine," Rachel said distractedly.

"Is everything OK?" Gabrielle asked, worried that maybe Rachel wasn't as OK with it as she had said she was.

Rachel smiled. "It's not that. Someone keyed my car yesterday afternoon. It's no biggie – it's not like it was _worth_ anything – but I just can't believe what some people will do."

"I know," Gabrielle said. She had grown up in a farm, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity for pointless vandalism. Even after two years of living in Sydney, she still couldn't believe what some people would do out of boredom or a taste for destruction. "Do you have any idea who did it?"

"A couple of witnesses said they saw a young girl – maybe eighteen – blond – hanging around." Rachel shrugged. "Probably some bored high school girl showing off to her mates. You know, when I was that age, I was at home studying," Rachel said. It was a common refrain among people; no matter how old they were, no matter what generation they were from, they were always much better behaved than their juniors. "Why? Do you know something?" she asked when she saw Gabrielle blanche.

"It's not important," she said. "It can't be relevant."

"I'd like to make that decision for myself."

"Ok, that description – blond, eighteen or so – matched Ali."

"Ali? As in, Jack's ex Ali?" Gabrielle nodded. "But – why would she be bothered to key my car?"

"That's why I said it couldn't be relevant."

"But you still brought it up," Rachel said.

"I don't know why I brought it up," Gabrielle said. "Except – she creeps me out. She always did. I got the impression from day one that she hated me on the spot for being in Jack's life – like she wanted him all to herself. I never liked her. And the way she attacked him after he broke up with her – you just don't act like that, or at least a normal person doesn't."

"You think she would key my car?" Rachel asked disbelievingly. "How does she even know who I am?"

Gabrielle shrugged. "I always thought she was far more snoopy than Jack would believe," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if Jack kept a diary or something and she decided it was fair game. Look, I don't even know if it was her – it was just the first thing that came to mind."

"Then – why hasn't she done anything to _your_ car?" Rachel asked.

"Admin staff have a separate carpark, one with security," Gabrielle said, feeling a shiver run down her spine. She hadn't thought about it until now, but Rachel had a point. If Ali _had_ decided to go gunning for everyone she thought came between her and Jack – to a point that she would key Rachel's car, and everyone knew Rachel had never meant anything to Jack – then what was she capable of doing to Gabrielle?

"I'll speak to her," Jack said that evening when Gabrielle brought it up. He was struggling to come to grips with the fact that Ali could possibly be so vicious. It had been several weeks now, and he hadn't heard from Ali since she had attacked him, so he had figured she'd cooled off and gotten over him. And now Gabrielle was reckoning that she had keyed Rachel's car.

Why Rachel's car? Was she so deluded that she felt _threatened _by a one-night stand he'd had with a woman he hadn't cared a whit for, had, in fact, scarcely been attracted to? And how did she even know about him and Rachel? The only way she could have known was if she had read his journal. He wasn't super-obsessed with its security like a teenage girl would be, but then, that was because he hadn't expected anyone to read it, let alone go looking for it. Certainly, he trusted Gabrielle that far. And he thought he could trust Ali that much too.

Mind you, he had thought he could trust her to be honest with him. Had she really stooped to going through his journal? And tracking down all the women he mentioned in it?

He remembered talking to Rachel a few days ago, hugging her. It was the first contact he had had with the woman since she had stopped working at the ED. Had Ali seen that? Had she been tracking him? Was she that obsessed with him?

Jack remembered when his former mentor, Vincent Hughes, had attracted the attentions of a stalker, Beth Chandler, who had been a one-night stand of his. At the time, he had found it hard to believe that Beth really was as twisted and obsessed as Vincent had made her out to be – it hadn't been until Beth had really upped the terror that people had started to understand how obsessed and mentally unhinged he was. Was Ali like that? Jack shivered at the thought. He much preferred the thought that Rachel's car had been keyed by some bored high school girl wanting to impress her friends with her immature idea of rebelliousness.

Because if Ali was willing to display that kind of viciousness to Rachel, a one-night-stand that he hadn't given a shit about, what would she be willing to do to Gabrielle? It didn't bear thinking about. "I'll talk to her," he said again.

* * *

"I was with Tricia and Lisa," Ali said primly when Jack asked her where she had been yesterday afternoon at the time a witness had spotted a young blond woman hanging around Rachel's car. A little _too_ primly, Jack thought. And a little too immediate. Like she'd been waiting for him to call.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid.

"Why?" Ali asked, just as primly. Jack wondered if she had always used that tone of voice and he had simply overlooked it, or she had taken it on since they had broken up – or she had used it all along and simply used a warmer tone for him. Jack explained what had happened. "And you think _I_ did it?" Ali said with just the right touch of indignation. "Who _is_ this Rachel, anyway? One of your floozies? How many of them _were_ there, anyway?" Her last question was asked in a taunting voice, as if she knew exactly how many there were – or at least had a fair idea of his past promiscuity.

"You – stay – _the hell_ away from me," Jack hissed before slamming down the phone. He gripped the edge of the table. He was shaking badly.

* * *

"I can't prove it was her – if she says she was with these friends, then no doubt by now she's got them to lie through their teeth as her alibis."

"Isn't there a commandment about not lying?" Gabrielle asked dryly.

"The type of Christian Ali is – or claims to be – I think she picks and chooses what she follows. You ever read Jodi Picoult's _Salem Falls_?" he asked.

"Is that the one where the guy is falsely accused of rape and the accuser is a manipulative bitch who thinks she's a Wiccan?" Gabrielle asked.

"That would be the one."

"Oh." Gabrielle shivered at Jack's analogy. She realised Jack was comparing Ali to the mentally unstable villainess of _Salem Falls_ – well, not exactly – but it was scary to think that Ali was that hung up on Jack that she didn't see anything wrong with keying Rachel's car; that she maybe saw it on the same level as the rest of us label our food. _Keep your hands off my stuff_.

Ali may have targeted Rachel – if it _had_ been Ali, and although the evidence was so circumstantial, Gabrielle was just as convinced as Jack that she had been behind it – because Rachel's car had been easier to access than her own – but if she was capable of that kind of twisted jealousy, who knew what else she was capable of doing? "It'll be OK," Jack said when she told him as much. "She'll get bored eventually."

Gabrielle wasn't sure she liked the sound of that _eventually_.

* * *

"What's this?" Rachel asked Jack the next day.

"It's the number of a friend of mine who's a panel beater. Don't look like that, I had a working-class upbringing and I still keep in touch with some people. He'll fix up your car cheap and he knows to send the bill to me."

"Why?" Rachel asked. "_You_ didn't do it."

"I feel responsible though. It'll make me feel better if you let me pay for it. Please?" he asked.

Rachel couldn't help but smiling at that. If the guy wanted to pay for the repairs to her car – "Are you worried?" she asked. She wasn't particularly worried about Ali herself; the woman may have reacted to seeing them hug a few days ago, and it sucked to have her car keyed, but it was just her car being keyed, and how did that compare to whatever wrath Ali felt towards Gabrielle? Even if Ali just saw Gabrielle as an interference as a close friend and housemate, and didn't realise that they were actually together, she still had to be gunning for Gabrielle.

Rachel decided she would much rather be in her own shoes than Gabrielle's – no matter what kind of crush she had once had on Jack.

* * *

"Jack, do you really think this is such a big issue? It sounds a bit far-fetched," Caroline said. Jack had taken the opportunity to run some blood tests up to pathology; he figured that since he would be travelling entirely through the hospital, and mostly in staff-only areas, there was no chance for Ali to see him talking to Caroline. _If_ Ali was still hanging around the hospital, and _if_ she had worked out who Caroline was – which Jack though both were highly probable.

"I know," Jack admitted. He was the first to acknowledge that it sounded far-fetched, and he felt guiltier than ever about how slow he had been to doubt Vincent. _Guess it's not as far-fetched as I thought_. "I just want you to take care of yourself. Keep an eye out for anything – suspicious."

Caroline smirked at that. She appreciated the gesture, but she thought Jack was over-reacting. "Will do," she said. "But I'd be more worried about Gabrielle if I were you."

Now it was Jack's turn to smirk. "I'm sure you know by now that Gabrielle can take care of herself."

Caroline laughed at that. She didn't know Gabrielle as well as Jack did, of course, but she had gotten to know the woman enough through both the hospital and her short-lived relationship with Jack, and she knew that Gabrielle was indeed capable of taking care of herself. "If it makes you feel better," she said, "given how insular this hospital is, people don't talk to anyone _but_ other hospital staff. I doubt she'd find out about you and Gabrielle. Not unless she wants to stake out your house twenty-four-seven. And wrangle her way onto the staff."

* * *

Louise Campbell, who worked in one of the gift shops that littered the hospital, waved at her new friend Lexi. She'd come in one day and bought a massive bunch of flowers for her grandmother and ended up talking at length to Louise – about her poor grandmother, about how customers could be so rude; that just because you had a sick friend or relative didn't give you the right to take it out on the person selling the flowers and plush toys. She worked in hospitality herself, Lexi explained, and she could write a _book_ about sucky customers.

They had become firm friends, and Louise had found herself filling Lexi in on the customers she saw every day, as well the doctors and nurses that crossed her path. People didn't think people like her noticed anything, but they did. And she liked that Lexi knew she did.

At first, Louise didn't understand why Lexi was so interested in the comings and goings of the hospital – it got to be routine after a while. "Oh, I just work in a small coffee shop," Lexi/Ali explained. Thanks to her parent's wealth, the closest she had ever been to the counter of a coffee shop was _in front_ of it, not behind. She had never understood why people like Louise would demean themselves in work like this. But it gave her a wedge into the hospital grapevine. "It sounds so interesting to me." So Louise, happy to have someone to tell everything that piqued her interested or infuriated her, told Lexi everything she was interested in knowing.

It hadn't taken Louise long to get onto the doctors and nurses – who was decent, who wasn't, who was likely to hit on anything in a skirt (or in the case of women like Bianca Frost, anything with a penis) and who was actually capable of fidelity. "The ED staff are probably the nicest of the lot," Louise confided. "The head of department, Frank Campion, doesn't put up with a lot of ego or pretension."

Ali had met Frank Campion. The man looked ready to keel over (Ali had harboured hopes that Jack would take his position) and she had overheard him belittling Christian values. Definitely not a man Jack should be answering to. "And the doctors?" she asked with a conspiring smile. "Any cute, young ones?"

"A couple," Louise said. "Not great pickings, though. One of them, Bart – absolute sweetie, but he was involved with a patient who died of cancer. He's not interested in dating. Trust me, pretty much every woman in this hospital has found _that_ out. Another of them, Steve _waaay _too old, over thirty-five I reckon, and there's something a bit off about him. I dunno why Frank hired him, to be honest. I think he has a history with Gabrielle, the NUM. That's Nursing Unit Manager," Louise added.

Yes, Ali knew what NUM stood for. She also knew about Steve, thanks to a few comments Jack had made in his journal. Seems he didn't think about the reformed alcoholic who used to date Gabrielle. Ali had taken that to be a sign of protectiveness – a protectiveness that Gabrielle would no doubt use against him if it ever occurred to her to sink her claws into him. And Ali had no doubt that it would soon enough occour to Gabrielle that Jack was worth sinking her claws into.

"... I heard Steve cheated on her with her best friend," Louise continued on, and Ali suppressed the urge to scowl. Jack had written that in his journal, too. He was awfully fond of Gabrielle. It wasn't _natural_ for a man to be that fond of a woman who wasn't his relative. Actually, she thought, it wasn't natural for a man to be that fond of a woman who wasn't his _wife_. "But it has a happy ending, I think. Everyone's saying how she's hooked up with one of the other doctors in the ED, Jack Quade, who's her housemate. Which _naturally_ means the most eligible guy in that place is off the market but – _c'est, la vie_," she said, shrugging her shoulders as if to acknowledge that Jack Quade was hardly going to look twice at her anyway, so she may as well be happy for the woman that he _did_ look twice at.

"Huh?" Ali asked, masking her shock well. She had known that Jack and Gabrielle were unnaturally close, but she hadn't expected to hear that they had actually gotten together. It had only been a few _weeks_ since Jack had broken up with her! She felt her blood run cold. Had Jack left her for Gabrielle? Had he _ cheated_ on her? Had that wench taken advantage of Ali's spiritual beliefs and seduced him, corrupted him into thinking that sex was more important than a lasting relationship with a good woman? "Sorry," she said when Louise looked a bit oddly at her. "I just got distracted for a moment."

"Doesn't matter," Louise said, happy enough to have an audience that she overlooked Ali's distraction. "I was just saying that Gabrielle's gotten together with, like, the _hunkiest_ doctor in the ED. Which is too bad for the rest of us, but she's a decent person – doesn't treat the people beneath her like crap, which a lot of admin types do."

Ali desperately wished to inform Louise that Gabrielle Jaeger was nothing but a seductive tramp – and a mousy, country hick at that, who had no doubt learned all about seducing men from all the long, boring nights in the back of beyond where there was nothing else for someone of such loose morals to do – but she knew she had to keep Louise onside. "It's nice when things like that happen," she said. "I'm a big believer in Karma. I believe that what you give is what comes back to you – with interest." She spoke the last two words with barely concealed venom.

Shortly after, she and Louise said their goodbyes and headed their separate ways. Ali was seething. Bad enough that she had suspected – to actually _hear_ it, to know that everyone knew about it – that that _tramp_ had stolen her boyfriend.

She would pay, Ali thought. No-one stole something of Alexis Nelson's and got away with it.

* * *

"I'm beat," Jack said when dinner was finished that evening. "It feels like this day's gone on for _ages_."

"Yeah," Gabrielle agreed. With all the people asking her about her relationship with Jack, and her slight paranoia about Ali being everywhere – any blond over a hundred and sixty centimetres and under seventy kilos and thirty years of age was beginning to look like Jack's ex – had made for very draining day. And that was _before_ you factored in any of the patients. "Sometimes I actually _miss_ working in a little clinic."

"Yeah? You miss the lack of cutting-edge technology?" he asked.

"_That_ I could happily have lived without." She finally allowed herself to relax as Jack drew her into his arms and started rubbing her shoulders. "That feels good," she said. "_You_ feel good."

"Yeah?" He cupped her chin and turned her head so he could kiss her. He had only meant for it to be a quick peck on the lips, but instead found himself kissing her deeply. There was something about Gabrielle that was incredibly intoxicating. "You're in my blood, you know," he said.

"I don't hear any complaints," she teased.

They started making out. Jack pushed Gabrielle down onto the couch so he was on top of her. Their legs were soon tangled together, and his hands were inside her shirt, resting on her bare skin just above the waist of her pants. By unspoken agreement, they never went further than that. She knew he was waiting for her to do or say something to kick it up to the next level; he was scared of pushing things before she was ready.

Well, she was ready. And she was sick of waiting for him to get over his hang-ups. He was never going to get over it until he learnt what it was to be in a healthy sexual relationship. She brought her hands up under his shirt and up his back then down again, digging under his jeans and boxers to his bare ass, squeezing provocatively. "Gabrielle!" Jack said, a little shocked by her boldness – but pleasantly so, he had to admit.

She smiled cheekily at him. "You know what I want," she said. "_You_." She hoped Jack wasn't going to turn her down – _thanks, but I'm not ready_, and all that. It would be humiliating if he did.

He cocked his head at her. "You sure?" he asked. "I'm not making you feel like you should?" She had confided in him that part of the reason she had first started sleeping with Steve was that she felt she _had_ to, that she couldn't maintain his interest without it – not that she could maintain his interest _with_ sex – and he didn't want to make her feel like she _had_ to go to bed with him.

"Are _you_ ready?" she countered.

"Gabs. I've been ready for a while," he admitted. "Or haven't you noticed the amount of linen I've been going through?" Despite herself, she blushed at that. It was one thing to know that Jack had a high sex drive; another, quite pleasant thing to know that he desired it; it was something else altogether to hear it put so crassly. "Give me a sec," Jack said, and he reached for his backpack, unzipping it and pulling out a single white sheet. "I got this done," he said, showing it to her.

She took it. It was the results of a blood test – all clear. "Jack, you didn't need to do this. I trust you." Besides, she knew Frank had already had him tested for everything he could think of (and given how long Frank had been practising emergency medicine, that was a _lot_ of things) and then retested every six weeks until he was satisfied, and since Mercedes had been the last person that Jack had been involved with (well, apart from Ali, and STDs were hardly an issue _there_) Gabrielle hadn't been particularly worried.

Still, it was a nice gesture and it reminded her that he had a strong sense of decency. It was one of the many things that had made her fall for him.

"I know. I thought it might give you peace of mind." He blushed. "And I, uh –"

"Oh." Suddenly Gabrielle understood what Jack was angling at. He wanted _her_ to go through the same battery of tests. And while she couldn't blame him – actually, _not_ having already done it was a bit careless of her, given that Steve wasn't the most trustworthy of people when it came to sex and given the line of work that she was in – but still – it brought an element of the tawdry to it.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't want to bring it up."

"I understand," she said. "It just –"

"Sucks to talk about it?" Jack asked. Gabrielle nodded. "I know. But how sucky d'you think you'd feel if I gave you an STD because we didn't talk about it?"

Gabrielle nodded. She knew Jack had offered the hypothetical of _him_ giving _her_ an STD to draw attention away from the fact that _she_ was the one who didn't have a very current set of blood tests. "I know," she said. "And I'm grateful." He was right – it sucked to talk about it – but the possible consequences of _not_ talking about it were far suckier, and she was glad he had brought it up. Even if it didn't feel like it right now. She spent a good minute in silence, thinking, before reaching her decision. "So – d'you have condoms?" she asked.

He looked at her in surprise. "Sorry?" he asked.

"Do you – " she started, and he waved her away.

"I heard what you said. I just didn't think you were serious."

"I don't ask something like that without being serious, Jack," she said. "Do you?"

"Um... yeah," he admitted. It was ingrained in him, and he'd stocked up extra when he had started dating Ali. Still, it felt like something he should be embarrassed about.

Gabrielle laughed, reading his thoughts. "You don't need to be embarrassed, Jack. If more guys thought like you, we wouldn't have half the patients we do." They were both thinking of a patient they'd had a few months ago who, out of desperation to relieve himself of his virginity, had gone to a prostitute and paid extra not to use a condom. Though it _was_ kind of cute the way Jack was looking as if it _was_ something to be embarrassed about. She slid her hand up his thigh. "So... why don't we go to your room?" she asked, knowing that Jack had absolutely no desire to spend any more time than necessary in _her_ room – the one she had shared with Steve.

"If that's what you want," he said.

She smiled in her best attempt at seductive which actually came across somewhat comical – which Jack found charming. "It's what I want."

He got up off the couch and reached his hand out for her. When she was on her feet, he swung her into his arms and carried her into his bedroom. Gabrielle shivered slightly in anticipation. She had been in Jack's room before, and since they had gotten involved, but always with the unspoken agreement that it wasn't yet time to take that step. Now it was. Now here they were.

Jack struggled to hide his nervousness. The funny thing was, he had thought he had been nervous with Ali, and that had _nothing_ on what he was feeling now. He supposed that meant that, whatever he had felt for Ali had nothing on what he felt for Gabrielle – and that he was terrified of stuffing things up, taking things too far too fast and doing something he regretted – but still, he would have _liked_ to not feel the butterflies in his stomach.

"Nervous?" she asked when he lay her down on his bed.

"A little," he admitted.

"Me, too."

He stifled the urge to laugh at that. What did _she_ have to feel nervous about? _She_ didn't have anything to prove. _She_ wasn't the one who had hit the triple digits trying to prove herself. _She_ wasn't the one scared of stuffing things up because at the heart of it, relationship were something he absolutely sucked at...

It clicked. Steve was the only real boyfriend she'd ever had, and _that_ hadn't exactly been a paradigm of a healthy, functional relationship – in her own way, she was just as nervous of stuffing things up. Which kind of amused him, because the things she was so insecure about – her lack of sophistication and pretentions which meant that while she wasn't exactly a guy magnet, she was an amazing human being – were the things that he loved about her. "You could never do the wrong thing," he told her. He kissed her deeply. She felt and tasted good, and not just in a physical way. There was something about her that made him feel a sense of peace and settlement that he couldn't remember ever feeling. Things felt _good_ with her, they _worked_. "I love you," he whispered.

"You don't have to say that just to get into my pants," Gabrielle joked.

"I'd never say something like that to get into your pants," Jack replied softly, his words reeking with sincerity despite the fact they were barely audible. "I love you. I loved you before I even got involved with you. You're the best thing that even happened to me." Gabrielle was silent, floored by his declaration. She had known that he was deeply fond of her, but that he loved her – "You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know." Funny, he thought – he had never been able to tell a woman he loved her without needing to hear it in return. In that regard, he had been like a stereotypical neurotic, insecure teenage girl. But now - now he could say it and not need to hear it in return. Maybe that was because he was secure in how she felt about him, more secure than he had felt about – well, anyone, unless you were counting his sister, and she _had_ to love him, he was her only sibling. But Gabrielle – well, there was no denying that Gabrielle was good for him. He loved her, and he was secure enough in that love to not need to sentiment returned – not if she didn't feel it.

She smiled. She couldn't think of a more perfect moment. "I love you, too, Jack," she said.

They kissed, and Jack moved his hands under her t-shirt, moving the material up over her bra. He'd seen her in the bra before, of course – you couldn't live with someone and maintain the kind of privacy required _not_ to – but not like this. "You're so beautiful," he whispered. He kissed the bare flesh that swelled over the confining material and she whimpered with pleasure, arching her back so she thrust her breasts into his face – not that he was complaining.

He reached behind her arched back and unclipped her bra, freeing her breasts from the material. _Good riddance_, he thought, and began kissing her breasts with abandon. Gabrielle responded by wedging her hands between their bodies and clawing at the buttons on his shirt, tearing one half off in her eagerness to get the offending material off him.

She had seen him without his shirt off before, of course – you couldn't live with someone and maintain the kind of privacy required _not_ to – but not like this. Not as her boyfriend. She ran her hands the length of his back, relishing the feel of his muscles under her fingers. For the first time since they had become close – since before they had gotten together – it struck her how much younger and fitter Jack was than Steve. "_Very_ nice," she said.

"I aim to please," he grunted. She could hear the desire in his voice, and she got a kick out of it. She ran her hands over his back, his shoulders, down his chest. She wedged her hands under his jeans again to squeeze his ass. He grunted again, and bucked against her. She could feel his erection against her thigh, "That works a lot better if you undo the buttons," he suggested breathlessly. Balancing his weight on his knees, he raised himself slightly to create a space between their bodies. She undid the buttons of his jeans and lingering, brushed her fingers against his crotch, first gently, then cupping provocatively. She felt his hardness throbbing through the material, and felt a rush of desire for it.

"You," he said grandly, "are not playing fair." And with that, he dragged his hand down her body, his flat hand snaking across her stomach and abdomen, under the waistband of her pants, inside her thighs. He traced his fingers along the elastic of her underwear, enjoying feeling her squirm under him. Combined with the kisses he was raining over her face, it wasn't long before she was panting and squirming uncontrollably.

"Jack, please..." she said, her voice loaded with a desire she hadn't thought herself capable of feeling.

"I aim to please," he said again, and brought his fingers under her underwear, probing her most intimate of places with gentleness and restraint that he didn't think he was capable of. He wanted desperately to rip off the constraining material and plunge himself into her. It took all he had to take things slow, and he was rewarded with the feel of her wetness at his touch, the way she was panting and crying out his name as he touched her with all the expertise he could muster.

As both their desires rose, the restraining material of her pants and underwear grew more irritating, and Jack yanked both down in a single swift motion, ditching them both on the floor. He resumed touching her, the feel of her driving him wild.

Sensing this, Gabrielle snaked her hand under his unzipped jeans to feel his throbbing hardness. Jack groaned at that. He'd been having erotic dreams about her almost every night since they had gotten together, and was completely unsatisfied from it. "I think –" he groaned. It was all he could get out, but Gabrielle knew exactly what he meant – and got a kick out of it. He was virtually speechless with lust.

Of course, she knew that part of it was that he hadn't slept with anyone since Mercedes, a good nine months ago. He was very close to breaking point. But still – Gabrielle enjoyed knowing that _she_ was still part of the reason he was so hot and bothered. Deftly she grasped his swollen member. Jack started to protest – he knew he didn't have the ability to hold out for long and he didn't want to make an ass of himself, ejaculating prematurely like a sixteen-year-old. Gabrielle placed a finger over his lips. "Relax," she told him in a voice that he knew not to try and disobey. Besides, when Gabrielle had her hand there, he was disinclined to do anything but lie back and let her do it.

So he lay back and helped her get him out of his jeans and boxers so he was as naked her she was. He dimly recalled that he had managed to coax Ali into giving him a hand-job, but this felt so much more intense, and he wasn't sure how much of it was Gabrielle's experience (which was kind of funny, because she wasn't that much more experienced than Ali) and how much was the fact that he was crazy about her. He arched his back and climaxed hard with an animal groan before slumping back on the bed, feeling like he had done a lot more than just lie back while his girlfriend gave him a hand job. "I don't know what you do to me," he breathed. He smiled at her, and held out his arms to her. "Come here," he said.

Obediently, she came into his arms and he flipped her easily so she was on her back and he was on top of her. They made out with as much leisure as they could manage, given how hot they were for each other. "You ready?" Jack asked when he felt he was going to make an ass of himself all over again. Gabrielle nodded. As if he needed to ask. Jack reached over to his dresser and fumbled for a condom. He felt clumsy putting it on, a combination of being slight out of practice and equal parts full of nervousness and anticipation.

He penetrated her as slowly as he could when he wanted to bury himself in her in one swift motion. When he was completely inside her, she responded by wrapping her legs around his waist and it occurred to him that she had a strong grip. But then, he had already known that. She had gotten a lot of physical exercise on the farm she had grown up on and hadn't seen the point in stopping just because she moved to Sydney. It would be interesting being with someone as strong and athletic as she was, that was for sure. Jack was already beginning to wonder how he had ever found Ali's slim build (she had been vocal about girls being supposed to look like girls) attractive. He grunted when she suddenly pushed herself hard against him with surprising force; yes, he could definitely get used to being with someone as strong and athletic as Gabrielle was.

He started pumping her, first slowly then gaining speed until they were going at it frantically, tearing at each other's bodies with their mouths and hands, demonstrating all the restraint of animals in heat. Their cries and moans grew louder and more frantic, and they climaxed together and stopped in abrupt silence.

It was amazing.

"You're amazing," Jack said. "That was –"

"Incredible?" Gabrielle offered. She snuggled into Jack's arms. They were both slick with sweat but it only added to the raw animal beauty of the moment. "I knew you would be good," she murmured. "But if I had known it would be _that_ good, I wouldn't have let you drag your feet."

"I haven't dragged my feet!" Jack objected – although it was true enough that he had never dated someone for so long without taking them to bed. Unless you counted Caroline and Ali. Which, strangely enough, Jack didn't feel inclined to. His relationships with them seemed so pale compared to what he shared with Gabrielle. Then it sunk in what Gabrielle had said, and he grinned. "You know I'd be good, huh?" he asked.

"You have a... certain reputation," Gabrielle admitted, as if Jack didn't already know that for himself. But it was still nice to hear.

Despite being naked and sweaty, there was no inclination to do anything but lie in each other's arms. It was, they both thought, absolutely perfect. "I love you," Jack said again as they drifted off to sleep. He couldn't think of anything more appropriate to say.

* * *

From her position at the side of the house, Ali watched the couple, her heart burning with rage. While she had long since realised that Jack and Gabrielle were together – Louise saying so had only confirmed that everyone _else_ knew – to watch them consummate their relationship had burned her like nothing else in her young life had. To watch them going at it like animals – to watch her twist and writhe in his arms like the bitch in heat that she was. Ali had watched her touching him like a harlot, conveniently forgetting that _she_ had once touched Jack that way. Her lip curled up in disgust. Gabrielle Jaeger was such a shameless slut, behaving like a porn star where anyone could see her. (Well, anyone who had wedged themselves in the meter-wide gap between the house and retaining wall.)

She had to admit, she had felt a little hot watching them – especially Jack. There was no denying that he was a very good-looking man and would no doubt be a very good husband in bed. But that was the key word _husband_. He was demeaning himself by engaging in such bedroom antics with such a slut who didn't have the dignity to save herself for marriage.

Ali just bet that there had been dozens – no, _hundreds_ – men who had shared Gabrielle's bed. Hell, she probably never bothered to insist on a bed. Ali bet that the back of a ute was just fine for _her_. _Her_, the slut who had stolen Ali's man.

She watched the sleeping couple who lacked the dignity to shower or dress with contempt mixed with desire, feeling pity for Jack that he should demean himself so and hatred for the Jezebel who was leading him into temptation. _You'll pay, you harlot_, she promised Gabrielle silently. _And then Jack will see the light and come back to me_.


	4. Chapter 4

"Gabri_elle_," Jack protested weakly when she kissed him enthusiastically. "If you want to do this, we can go home. I'd much rather my bed than a dusty old office. That was Frank's office, no less," he pointed out. He had managed to wrangle enough money to refurnish the old HoD's office – the one Frank had abandoned when the ED had been renovated four years ago and never reclaimed, decided instead to share the NUM's office with Nelson Curtis – and got Frank's agreement to finish the renovations that he himself had had no interest in on the proviso that they did it on their own time. Gabrielle and Jack were both eager for Gabrielle to have her office back, and as such, considered this a fair deal.

This office was bigger, and a part of them agreed that since _they_ were dong the cleaning, the office should be Gabrielle's, but they also agreed that it was unlikely of Frank to agree to that – or Zoe, for that matter. And it didn't seem fair that one person should get the bigger office and two the smaller. And anyway, the important thing was Gabrielle getting her office to herself again – not that it had ever been solely hers in the first place, because Frank had commandeered it over two years before she had arrived in Sydney.

She had been fine with it then, when she had been nervous and eager to make a good impression. Sharing an office with another person had been plenty enough room for her, anyway. But now she was sharing it with _two_ people, and more to the point, she enjoyed the few moments she and Jack could snatch to themselves before Frank or Zoe came in – or Charlotte or Bart _looking_ for Frank or Zoe.

So clearing out Frank's old office – even on their own time – seemed like a good solution. Except when it was just the two of them, it was so easy to get distracted and before too long, they were in each other's arms. And since it was their own time and since no-one was stupid enough to interrupt them – God knew what they were doing behind a closed door on their own time – there were no interruptions. So it was so easy to end up in each other's arms and lose track of time...

"Gabrielle," Jack said again, this time slightly more controlled. "Stop it." If only she'd stop brushing her fingers down his arms like that. How could you pull away from someone who was making you feel like the way the movies said you were supposed to feel in the throes of first love? He couldn't believe how good such a simple touch felt, and it was _so hard_ to make her stop. Almost as hard as it was to stop touching her himself.

Reluctantly, Gabrielle pulled away. Jack had a point; if they were going to make out, they were better off going home then doing it in this dusty old office. And the more they committed to cleaning this place up – and all it needed was a decent clean and maybe a paint job – the sooner Frank and Zoe could move into it.

She chuckled inwardly at the thought of Frank and Zoe moving in anywhere.

"Fine," she said, and she picked up the broom that had been discarded and was now leaning against the wall. "You never let me have any fun," she said playfully with a mock-pout.

He grinned. "If I had known a decent lay would turn you into such a slut, I would have done it months ago," he said.

She poked her tongue out at him. Their new relationship hadn't lost any of its old, teasing banter. "If I had known sex could be that much fun, _I_ would have had my way with you months ago," she retorted. She had honestly never thought that sex could be so much fun, so enjoyable, so respectful, so loving... and then there was the fact that Jack was looking very at-peace these days, and she knew she had a part in that. She loved knowing that Jack had finally found a way to approach sex that was healthy and happy – and she had been a part of that.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"You," she replied.

"I like hearing that." He watched her for a few seconds; he never tired of watching her. She usually fell asleep before him, and he loved watching her. She was the most important thing in his life – well, equally important with Rebecca, at least – and their sexual relationship had only emphasised that.

He frowned slightly. It had been several weeks now, and she was dragging her heels on the blood test. They both knew that, given Steve's history of infidelity, there was a decent chance that he had picked something up along the way – and passed it on to Gabrielle. Jack was trying to brace himself for any possibility – after all, Dan and Erica managed it – but it was hard to get used to something if you didn't know what it was you were meant to be getting used to – or even if there was something that you had to get used to.

Gabrielle frowned. She knew what Jack was thinking about – and what was worse, she knew he was in the right. He had every right to ask for a blood test, especially when he had procured one himself voluntarily, and especially since Steve didn't exactly have a sterling record when it came to responsible behaviour. It was just that she was so scared of what the results could show. She had seen what it had done to Dan. Certain results, and there was no way she could keep her job – at least not ethically.

"It's one little blood test," he said. "Don't tell me you're scared of needles?" he teased, trying to keep the mood light. God knew, she wouldn't be the first medical professional who saw blood and gore day after day but got squeamish at the sight of their own blood. "It'll take a few seconds and then it'll be over and we can get on with things."

"Get on with you not having to use a condom, you mean," she said, trying to twist it around to him and instantly feeling bad. He was only asking of her what he had volunteered of himself, and in this day and age, it was stupid not to demonstrate that kind of honesty in a relationship.

She was surprised that he laughed, seeing right through her. "This isn't about me and you know it," he said good-naturedly. "You know you're not going to make this go away by stalling. You're only working yourself in knots. Whereas if you let me do this –"

"O_kay_," she agreed finally, mostly to get Jack off her back. He grabbed her hand and she allowed him to lead her through the ED – all attempts at cleaning Frank's office abandoned – to one of the few unoccupied cubicles. It didn't take him long to assemble what he needed. "This won't take a sec," he said. He wasn't surprised when Gabrielle closed her eyes tightly and turned her head in the opposite direction to the arm Jack had despite having her eyes closed tightly. He grinned at that. He didn't much like having his blood taken, either.

"All done," he said after a minute. "See, not that bad."

"No," she agreed. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Send it up to pathology. I'll put my name on it so no-one will know it's for you." Gabrielle blushed at that. For a moment, she had forgotten how much people liked to gossip in this place.

They continued on with their day, and after a while, Gabrielle almost forgot about the blood tests. She and Jack went home together, as they usually did – for someone who claimed to be highly disapproving of their relationship, Frank sure was overlooking the fact that Zoe was giving Jack a lot of shifts that coincided with Gabrielle's.

They had dinner together and ended up in his room, like they did most nights. "I can't remember the last time I slept in my own bed," she admitted. Jack heartily approved. He was slightly creeped out to think about the fact that Gabrielle had once shared that room with Steve – so he tended not to think of it often.

They kissed. She was on top of him, and she ran her hands over his chest. "I thought you said you couldn't," he said when she started working her way own his chest. She had already told him that it was that time of the month.

"I can't have sex with you," she said with what she hoped was a seductive grin – it failed somewhat, but he found it charming for precisely that reason. "I can do _other_ stuff."

... From her position – she had been here several nights in a row now, and she was starting to vary where she parked, in case a nosy neighbour took note of the fact the same car was parked across the street all the time – Ali watched Gabrielle give Jack a blow job with her customary excitement and revulsion – though more revulsion this time. Sex, though it could be pleasurable for sure, was intended as the natural means of procreation, and there was nothing _natural_ about _that_. It was disgusting. It was whorish. Only a harlot would do something like that.

It killed her a little inside that Jack actually seemed to _enjoy_ it. But then, he had enjoyed it when she had touched him down there – encouraged her, in fact, all but _forced_ her... although the reciprocation had been _very_ enjoyable... Ali allowed herself to become momentarily distracted, then shook her head to clear her mind of such ungodly temptations. _Maybe_, when she and Jack were married, she would allowed _him_ to do it to _her_ like she had seen him do it to Gabrielle – but she would _never_ do such a vulgar, disgusting, whorish thing to _him_. _Really_, she told Gabrielle in her head. _You should be charging him for it. May as well get paid to be such a slut._

Gabrielle went off to the bathroom after she had finished – she always did that, Ali noted. Well, if she didn't do such whorish things, she wouldn't have to rinse her mouth out, she thought viciously. She returned to the bedroom and cuddled up in Jack's arms. Ali watched them jealously for a few minutes then quietly extracted herself from the space between the side of the house and retaining wall and made her way to her car.

Jack would get tired of her soon enough, she thought. Whorish tricks couldn't hold a man's attention; only a good, pure heart could. Soon enough, Gabrielle would reveal herself to be the cheap slut that she was, and Jack would come running back to her – begging, ready to meet her terms.

And Ali planned on helping Gabrielle reveal herself as the slut that she was.

* * *

"Ja-_ack_," Caroline chided Jack gently a few days later. "What was it? You didn't want to hurt my feelings by admitting you were sleeping with her or it just didn't occur to you that I might be your best shot at discretion?"

"Huh?" Jack asked distractedly.

Caroline waved the white envelope with the trademark pathology stamp on it in Jack's direction. "Blood tests for one Jack Quade – a woman's blood, no less – and you don't think people might twig what you wanted it for? Seriously, you should have just come clean with me. I would have done it myself and kept an eye on it. Which makes me think you either thought you were sparing my feelings or just dumb. And I've played Scrabble with you, I know you're not dumb."

Jack looked guilty. He hadn't gone to Caroline because, as she had said, he hadn't wanted to admit to her that he was sleeping with Gabrielle, and had been hoping that maybe he could get away with her not knowing, even though she ran the damn lab. "Sorry," he said guiltily. It had been cowardly, especially since she had been so understanding about his relationship with Gabrielle.

She flashed him a smile. It was fun, watching him squirm guiltily. It was also amusing witnessing his efforts to keep his relationship with Gabrielle private, when it was the best piece of news to his the gossip vine since Mitch Stevens had left his wife for a former nun. She bore him no grudge for their relationship ending, or for the fact he was now dating someone he had had a close relationship with when they _had_ been dating. Gabrielle was clearly better for him than she could ever have been. "It's fine," she said. "I think I got to them before anyone else did."

"Thanks." He took the envelope. He had a legal right to open it and see the results – and some would say a _moral_ right, since this was his girlfriend – but as much as he wanted to know, he couldn't bring himself to learn something like that about Gabrielle before Gabrielle herself. "I, uh – don't suppose – "

"I do, and I'm not saying," Caroline said with a poker face that Jack hadn't realised she possessed. "That's between you and Gabrielle – and I reckon she'd kill you if you opened that envelope for her."

"I think you're right," Jack said sagely. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't just come to you in the first place. I was being... juvenile."

She laughed good-naturedly at that. "It's fine," she said. "I'm happy for you, I really am. You and I – we were never going to work out."

"I'm glad _someone_ thinks that way," he said. He doubted he would ever quite forget Ali biting him the way she had.

"You heard anything from her?" Caroline asked, immediately picking up on what – or, rather, _who_ – Jack was thinking about. You didn't even have to have dated him to know; the look of pain on his face was enough to tell he was thinking of someone he disliked, and such people were often exes.

"Nope," he said. The tone in his voice told Caroline that he was surprised by that.

"Told you," she said. "She's twenty years old, Jack. When _I_ was twenty I couldn't keep my mind on anything for more than a few days, either. She's probably off crushing on Zac Efron or whoever the Christian virgin of Zac Efron is and has forgotten all about you."

"I hope so," Jack said. He had never been one to want exes thinking about him after they had broken up – at least not in anything other than friendly, platonic terms, and since he had no interest in being friends with Ali, he preferred that she didn't think about him at all. "Thanks for bringing these down. And thanks for being discreet."

"No problems," she said, walking off with a cheery wave goodbye. Jack folded the envelope into as narrow a strip as he could manage and stashed it into his back pocket until he had the opportunity to be alone with Gabrielle.

That wasn't until later that afternoon. When it slowed down – 'slow' always being a relative term in the emergency department of a major urban hospital – Jack pulled her into an empty consult room. "I have your results," he said, handing them to her.

Gabrielle took note of the fact that even though they were in his name, and even though the envelope looked somewhat battered by now, Jack hadn't opened it. She imagined there must have been a great temptation to. "Thanks," she said in a shaky voice. With even more shaky hands, she reached for the envelope. She understood now what Dan had meant when he said his Hep-C results had felt like they were burning a hole in his pocket; on the one hand, she wanted to know, and on the other, she didn't, because what if it was the worst possible news?

Well, there was only one way to find out. And anyway, how bad could it be – Frank had made Steve submit to a battery of tests before he allowed him to start working at the ED again, and he had cleared them all, so what could he have possible given her?

She tore open the envelope and almost ripped the sheet in half pulling it out. She scanned the results, and her heart fell. She could feel something inside her physically falling although she knew it wasn't possible. Her face scrunched up in an ugly way and she released a cry on anguish.

Jack pulled her close into him and grabbed the piece of paper off her. He had already told himself that since Frank had put Steve through a battery of tests, there was only so much that could possibly go wrong, but from the way Gabrielle had reacted – he scanned the piece of paper, and felt a deep sense of relief flood through him. _Chlamydia_. It was only _Chlamydia_. "Jesus Christ, you _scared_ me for a second there," he breathed. "This is nothing a course of antibiotics can't take care of." Gabrielle continued to sob in his arms and Jack realised it was more than a simple infection that could be cleared with a course of antibiotics. He remembered when he had been sixteen and found out that he had syphilis – he had been told the same thing, and had felt the same way as Gabrielle was feeling now. There was a feeling of dirtiness from finding out you had an STD that another disease that could be just as easily eradicated didn't give you. "It's going to be OK," he said as soothingly as he could manage. "It's fixable and I don't care, I really don't."

"You're just saying that," she cried into his chest. Her words came out muffled but Jack knew exactly what she was saying; it was as if she were communicating with her telepathically.

"I am not," he said vehemently. "I've been through this, remember?" he reminded her; he had told her all about his sexual abuse and finding out at sixteen that the bastard had given him an STD. "I don't give a crap – especially since it's something that can be treated." He decided not to say that it could have been worse, like Hep-C or HIV; no point in putting _that_ imagine in her head when she was already so upset.

He kissed the top of her head in an almost chaste manner, knowing instinctively that she needed affection right now. She needed to know that it really didn't matter to him – and that it wouldn't have mattered if it had been worse (although he was extremely glad that it hadn't been.) "I'll take you home," he said.

He explained briefly to Zoe – he trusted her discretion implicitly – and took Gabrielle home. _Poor girl_, he thought. She didn't deserve to be going through this; no-one did (except maybe the bastards like Patrick and Steve whose selfishness had given the STDs in the first place) and she had to be feeling awful. He _knew_ she was feeling awful because he had been through it himself.

It would be OK, he thought. Sincere love and affection would make it better – eventually. He just had to be patient.

* * *

"I'm _so_ glad we caught up," Louise gushed when she and Lexi caught up for coffee later that day.

"Me too," Ali said. "I have so few friends – it's lovely to get out and catch up." Which was a lie. She had plenty of friends, and all of them far classier than someone who worked in a hospital gift shop. But Louise was proving to be a goldmine of information. She knew everything about everyone who worked in the hospital – or so it seemed – and it didn't take much manipulating of the conversation to get her talking about the hospital's newest couple, Jack Quade and Gabrielle Jaeger. Ali suspected Louise had a bit of a crush on Jack; _that_ didn't surprise her. He was a very desirable man – just way out of her league. The only reason Jack even _looked_ at her was because he was the kind of decent man who wasn't rude to service staff. She had liked that about him.

Louise prattled on about various events and people at the hospital – Ali was starting to wonder if she had a life outside the hospital, or she just lived vicariously through better people than her. She allowed Louise to talk about some Oncologist before she deftly manoeuvred the conversation to Jack and Gabrielle – she didn't want to seem _too_ eager to hear about a couple she claimed to have never met. "Oooh, the most _scandalous_ thing happened," Louise recalled when Lexi brought it up in a way that made Louise think _she_ had brought it up. "She has some STI – I forget which one it is – that she got from her ex."

That didn't surprise Ali one bit, but she pretended to look shocked nonetheless. "No!" she said in a suitably scandalised voice.

Louise nodded. She knew she was being unprofessional, but it was so enjoyable to talk about such things – especially to someone like Lexi, who admitted to being quite conservatives in her beliefs and inexperienced sexually. Louise could kind of see it from the way she dressed – stylish, in a way that screamed of money, but preppy and conservative – but thought it was a bit of a shame that a girl with _her_ looks wasn't using them. Louise knew that if she had Lexis's wholesome blond gorgeousness, _she_ wouldn't be wasting it on conservative Christian values. "The ex is _such_ a jerk," Louise confided. "I heard he cheated on her heaps of times, and _that's_ how he got it. Men," she added disdainfully.

Ali nodded. _Men, indeed_. Although _women_ were far worse – men had desires, after all, and if women _encouraged_ those desires... Ali shuddered slightly, remembering the blow job she had witnessed Gabrielle giving Jack. It didn't surprise her one bit that this ex of hers would cheat on her; that's what you got for sleeping with someone before you married them. No respect. Of course, Jack was a man, and he had to sow his wild oats before he settled down, so that was OK, but Gabrielle – she scowled with disgust to think of the slut.

Louise prattled on for a bit longer about Jack, Gabrielle and Steve, before veering off onto other people in the hospital. But that point, Ali had lost interest in what Louise had to say – she had gotten all the information she needed.

So Gabrielle had an STD. Ali wondered if it was a good one, like HIV, or one of those ones you could wipe out with a couple of pills – Ali had never bothered to learn much about it, because she didn't see that she would ever have to know about STDs; it would never concern her, she wasn't a slut like Gabrielle Jaeger who got STDs from anyone and everyone. But still, it suited plans admirably.

So _that_ was why they had been using condoms. Jack must have sensed something. Ali thought a little less of Jack in that moment, knowing that _he_ had known Gabrielle might be diseased and had slept with her anyway – but she dismissed the thought. He was only a man, and Gabrielle was the manipulative tramp that had led him down that path.

Well, know she knew exactly the type of woman Gabrielle was – and so did everyone in the hospital, if Louise's knowledge was anything to go by. People who worked in gift shops tended not to get the news until it had trickled down to everyone else. She smiled gleefully at that. So everyone in the hospital knew what a diseased slut Gabrielle was. Served her bloody right. And it fit into Ali's plan's nicely.

* * *

"You OK?" Jack asked Gabrielle as he unlocked the front door the next day. Unfortunately, Caroline had been too late in intercepting Jack's blood test and it hadn't been too long before it had gotten out that he had submitted a blood sample for testing. It hadn't taken long for the gossip vine to kick into overdrive and speculation was rife. The most popular theory was the truth – that he had submitted it under his own name for Gabrielle, and from there people speculated about exactly what STD she had. And her being visibly upset yesterday and going home early hadn't helped matters. Jack was extremely sorry now that he hadn't just gone to Caroline in the first place.

But it was done now and there was nothing that could be done but ride out the storm. Jack had a far-sighted way of looking at it; nothing would matter much in the long run, when they became one of those established couples; not his relationship with Ali, not anything Gabrielle might have gotten from Steve. And Jack intended for them to become one of those established couples. It was only a matter of time.

But right now, they had today to deal with.

Gabrielle nodded at Jack's question. She was as OK as she was going to get – there was nothing to do but ride out the gossip. People would forget eventually, especially after she and Jack became one of those established couples that people thought of as having been around forever – at least, she _hoped_ they would become one of those couples. She hated to think of how people would talk about her if she and Jack were to break up.

"Go have a shower, I'll get dinner started," Jack said. _Poor girl_, he thought again. It wasn't fair that she should have to go through this – not when it had been Steve's fault she had Chlamydia. All he could do was love her, and it infuriated him. He would have had everyone talk about him if he could – it wasn't like he was a stranger to being gossiped about – but all he could do was listen to people gossip about _her_. And threaten to break the noses of anyone he overheard doing it. Which he knew was achieving nothing but having people learn not to talk in his earshot, but it made him feel a little better.

He had just started pulling things out of the fridge when he heard a scream from Gabrielle's room. He dropped what he was doing – eggs landing on the floor with a resounding _crack_ – and bolted to her bedroom. "What the –" he started to ask, then stopped dead, both in his words and his tracks. It was quite clear what Gabrielle had screamed about.

Her bedroom had been totalled. Clothes were strewn about, and mostly looked as though they had been taken to with a pair of sharp scissors. Boxes that she stored mementos in had been open and scattered across the room, mostly in more pieces that they had been in this morning. Jack recognised a blue ribbon; she had used it to tie together notes and cards from her mother. She had shown it to him one day. Jack assumed that if the _ribbon_ had been torn, then the contents that it had been holding together had also been vandalised.

Someone had well and truly gone over this room – and no other – destroying most of Gabrielle's possessions.

And Jack had a sinking feeling who that 'someone' was. 'Slut', 'Jezebel' and other charming epitaphs had been scrawled across the walls in 'Princess Pink' lipstick. Ali always claimed that red was for whores. It struck Jack as inappropriately amusing – the pale pink really didn't work for scrawling insults across walls.

"Oh, Jesus, babe, I'm so sorry," he said. The guilt he had felt over Rachel's car being keyed was nothing compared to this. That, he assumed, had been the impulsive actions of a pissed-off girl – but _this..._

He _knew_ he hadn't given Ali a key – he certainly wouldn't do something like that without getting Gabrielle's OK, and he understood now why Gabrielle _wouldn't_ have given it, and he had most definitely not given her his security code. But by now he was under no illusions that Ali was warped enough to steal and copy his key – and figure out his security card.

Which, he recalled guiltily, was his sister's birthday – not too hard for someone like Ali to work out, who knew how much Rebecca meant to him. "I'm sorry," he said again, helplessly. It might have been Ali who had done this, but _he_ had brought her into their lives. _He_ should have taken more care.

Ali had been in their home, destroyed Gabrielle's things out of malice, and had done it because of him. He wasn't sure what he was more upset about – that Ali had done such a thing, or that Gabrielle was so upset. For a second, he was worried that she would hate him, but then she threw herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing into his chest. He held her tightly, not saying a word; he couldn't think of anything that _could_ be said that wouldn't sound trite. What _did_ you say when your ex had broken into your home and trashed your girlfriends things? Instead, he just held her until her sobs subsided and then led her into the living room and left her with a hefty vodka and lemonade.

Thankfully, it hadn't occurred to Ali to go through the laundry, and Gabrielle had done a whole pile on the weekend, so there it was, clean, dry and ready to be sorted. That would do for a few days, and Jack had every intention of picking up the bill for any shopping spree she might want – _would_ want. "Have a shower," he said gently when he returned to the living room with what clothes she had left. "Hell, have a long bath and a bottle of wine with it. I'll take care of this." What he could, at any rate.

When Gabrielle was having a shower, Jack fashioned a basic obstruction with a plank of wood slid through two metal brackets. He doubted Ali would come back, but it would keep the door closed until he could call a locksmith in the morning. And although it was a moot point, he changed his code.

Next, the police. Which were about as effective as Jack had thought they would be. It wasn't a break-and-enter because Ali hadn't actually _broken in_, and any fingerprints that she might have left in her little rampage could be explained by the fact that, as Jack's ex, she had spent three months having been invited into the place. "So the fact her fingerprints would be all over my housemates room – that doesn't mean anything?" Jack asked sarcastically.

"By your own admission, she's a snoop," one of the officers pointed out, and with a sinking feeling, Jack knew he was right. He _knew_ – they both knew – that Ali had copied his key, worked out his code and broken into the house - well, at least entered uninvited – and trashed Gabrielle's possessions while leaving everything else in the house untouched – but there was no way of proving it. She had, after all, been let into the house uninvited in the past, which explained any fingerprints that might be found, and the fingerprints were the only real evidence they had.

Come to think of it – Jack wasn't even sure that the insurance would cover it, because Ali had had a key. Not that it really mattered. The financial cost was something he could soak up; the _sentimental_ value, however, was irreplaceable.

"Look," the officer continued. "For what it's worth, I believe you." He didn't add that the Nelsons, as a family, had demonstrated a deep entitled streak that had resulted in many a complaint that nothing could be done about; revealing that kind of information wasn't exactly legal and wouldn't do any good anyway. "All I can suggest is you call a locksmith first thing in the morning and have your security updated."

So that was the end of it. Jack was seething with fury – at Ali, and at the unfairness of it all. They all _knew_ that she had done it, and there wasn't a thing anyone could do about it but let her get away with it.

And he had actually thought that maybe she was the girl he wanted to settle down with.

"I'm sorry," he said again when the police had gone.

"It wasn't your fault," she said dully, and although it didn't sound like it, she meant it. She knew that he wasn't accountable for Ali's viciousness and psychopathic tendencies – people made the wrong judgement about other people all the time, and while Ali had seemed a little manipulative, no-one could have predicted she would go this far in her rejection.

But that didn't change the fact that Ali _did_ have psychopathic tendencies, and she thought nothing of entering someone's house uninvited and trashing their possessions and crawling insults on the walls. Jack wasn't the cause of Ali's actions; she was just the thing she had decided to fixate upon. Alexis Nelson was gunning for her, and until she slipped up, there was nothing Jack or Gabrielle could do about it.

Neither of them slept a wink that night.

* * *

Louise recognised Caroline. She rarely saw the attractive head of Pathology, but when she and Jack had started dating, _everyone_ had pointed her out. "You're one of the pathologists," Louise said as Caroline browed through the floral selection of the gift shop.

"That's me," Caroline replied.

"Sick relative?" Louise asked.

Caroline looked blank, then realised what Louise was talking about. "Oh, no. I just wanted to get something for Gabrielle."

"Gabrielle Jaeger?" Caroline nodded. "Is she sick?" Louise asked.

"No, their place got broken into. She's pretty upset."

"Wow. Was anything taken?"

Caroline was surprise Louise hadn't heard; it was all over the hospital. Jack had been furious and made no bones about who he thought was the culprit. Caroline had felt a shiver go down her spine when she had heard. Ali was far more dangerous than she had thought; and she remembered thinking Jack was being paranoid about Ali. "His ex broke in and trashed her stuff," Caroline said. "A lot of sentimental stuff was destroyed." She shivered again. It was scary how easy it was for someone to become fixated on you and go after you and everyone they thought was coming between you and them.

Louise's eyes opened in fascinated surprise. Stuff like that never happened to _her_. "Wow," she said again. "How do they know it was her? The ex, I mean."

"Jack's pretty convinced. There was no forced entry, and you need a key and his code. From what he's told me of her, Ali's sneaky enough to get her hands on both."

"Ali?"

"His ex. Alexis. Never did like that name; sounds so – _hard_."

"Alexis," Louise repeated dully, things starting to add up. "I bet she's attractive."

"You could say that. Classic blond good looks – think Jennifer Hawkins. I never met her properly, but she noticed me once across the quad and gave me this cold stare – she's not someone I'd ever want to cross paths with. I certainly don't envy Gabrielle." Caroline spoke this with a fair bit of irony; she was well aware how many people were convinced there was deep bitterness between them when in fact she had always known that she and Jack didn't have that special connection that he had with Gabrielle – and anyway, she wouldn't want to be in Gabrielle's position right now. She had first started working at All Saints a few years ago when the Beth Chandler tragedy had happened, and _that_ had ended in her death. It wasn't something Caroline would wish to be involved in.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she missed the look on Louise's face; unmistakeable guilt. Louise stammered through the rest of the conversation, and Caroline left without buying anything; hospital gift shops were hardly the place to go to if you wanted a decent selection of floral arrangements; leaving Louise to dwell over exactly who her new friend was.

* * *

"You lied to me," Louise said the next time she and 'Lexi' caught up for coffee. She had thought about confronting her 'friend' over the phone but thought it would be best to do so in person. "You told me you're name was Lexi. It's Alexis."

Ali inspected her nails idly; now that she had been found out, there was no need to conceal the boredom – mixed with irritation – that she felt towards Louise. She wasn't sure if she should be surprised that Louise had taken this long to find out – had she really thought someone as beautiful and intelligent as Ali would be interested in a dumpy gift-store attendant? – or surprised that she had found out at all. Someone must've let enough information slip that she had put it together, she surmised. "I've been called Lexi, my name _is_ Alexis," Ali informed Louise haughtily. It was true enough that she had been called Lexi – by people who never got the opportunity to socialise with her after that. Lexi was such a common name, she thought – sounded too much like _sexy_, and she wanted to be thought of as classy and glamorous. Grace Kelly, not Marilyn Monroe.

Both of whom were way beyond anything Louise Campbell could aspire too, she thought cruelly.

Louise's eyes narrowed as she took in Ali as she truly was. The girl had no qualms about befriending – and Louise knew the term had to be used loosely, _using_ was a more accurate one – someone to get the information she wanted – information she used to terrorise decent people. Of course, Louise hadn't helped her break into the Jaeger/Quade house – Louise wasn't sure exactly what she _had_ helped Ali do – but she still felt awful. "You used me," she accused.

"And?" Ali asked coolly. Her father always said that sometimes you had to use people – especially people who were beneath you. It was like harnessing a beast of burden to do the work for you; really, it was _stupid_ to _not_ use these people.

Louise was more infuriated by Ali's cold, unrepentant manner than she was at being used in the first place. "I'll tell," she said, grappling for a means to knock that haughty, _I'm-better-than-you_ expression off Ali's face.

"Yeah?" Ali challenged. "What are you going to tell? That you blabbed information you weren't even supposed to have to someone you barely knew? I was Jack's girlfriend, remember? I know what kind of temper the man has when it comes to something like that." Which was true enough – hell, Louise herself had told Ali about how he had gotten into a punch-up with Gabrielle's ex, and gotten into fights with other men about other women – although she doubted that Jack would bother to get angry at someone like Louise over something like that. He would most likely feel sorry for her, dumpy thing that she was, so eager to have a friend that she blabbed to anyone who was interested. But Louise didn't have to know that.

Louise blanched at that. "You wouldn't dare," she said.

Ali's eyes narrowed dangerously, and what could be seen of her pupils glittering like blue steel. "You'd be surprised what I'd do," she said. "But I'll do you a favour and won't say anything." She allowed Louise a fraction of a second to enjoy being relaxed now that the threat had passed. It was fun, toying with her. "That is, if _you_ do _me_ a favour in return."

Louise looked even paler; she looked like she was about to be sick. Ali thoroughly enjoyed herself. It was just a shame she hadn't been able to witness Gabrielle's reaction to her little demonstration; she had thought about planting a camera in her room, but that would have required installing the kind of technology that Ali knew wouldn't have gone unnoticed. But she could imagine it well enough, and watching Louise squirm now helped made up for missing out. "I – I don't know what you mean," she stammered. "I have nothing to offer you."

"Normally, that would be true," Ali said with calculated cruelty. "But I need you to pull up Gabrielle Jaeger's personnel file."

At first, Louise was relieved; Ali was asking the impossible. Then she was worried. Ali had to _know_ that she was asking the impossible – but she still expected it done. "There's no way I can get that kind of information," she protested.

Ali smiled with calm complacency that did nothing to suggest that she _was_ either calm or complacent. Well – maybe calm. People like her always seemed to be calm, Louise realise dully. But never complacent. "I'm sure an innovative girl like you will find a way," she said, her tone suggesting that she didn't think much of Louise's innovation skills – but still expected her to get the information she wanted. Ali made a show of checking her watch. "I'm sorry but I _must_ go," she gushed in a voice that was reeking with insincerity. "We'll catch up soon – let me know how you go with that favour." And with that she was gone, leaving Louise to wonder exactly what she'd gotten herself into – nothing good, that was for sure.

* * *

Jack tried Ali at her apartment, and when she wasn't there, the next obvious choice was her church. When she wasn't at mass, chances were, she was teaching a catechism class, or overseeing a bake sale to raise funds for their sister church in Nigeria or some such place. While Jack had no doubt that churches in Nigeria were in desperate need of funds, the fact that they would come as an indirect result of Ali's efforts seemed to taint them somehow. _Hope you know the kind of people you have working for you, Joe_, Jack thought derisively to the Pope. Reverence to the church – _any_ church – had never been a strength of his.

It was some kind of social thing – the funny thing was, she could very well have told him about it; in which case, he would have agreed to go. Funny how things work out. Then he had been her boyfriend, deeply infatuated with her, blind to her flaws. Now he was with someone else – deeply, _genuinely_ in love with them – and Ali was terrorising her. Terrorising _them_.

She was surrounded by friends. He marched up to her, pushing through them, oblivious to the yelps of indignation over his rudeness. He grabbed Ali's arm roughly, and she yelped in a combination of surprise, indignation and pain – although she had seen Jack coming, and had expected him to confront her. "Jack," she said with all the classy coolness that the situation deserved.

He pulled her away from her friends. "You psycho _bitch_," he hissed. "Do you have _any idea_ what you did? How much those things meant to Gabrielle? Her mother is _dead_ and you destroyed everything that meant anything to her."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ali said, her flashing eyes and smug smile saying something completely different.

"Of course you don't," Jack said sarcastically. "Whatever it is you're trying to do, it's not going to work. _I love her_. You get that?"

For a second, Ali's smug smile faltered into a frown. He _loved_ her? No, he wouldn't love her – _couldn't_ love her – not when he really loved Ali. He was just saying that – he was just infatuated with that piece of trash. "That's what I'd expect to hear from someone who's consorting with someone like _her_," she hissed.

Jack wanted to laugh. _Consorting?_ Where did she get her words? Then he remembered that it wasn't a laughing matter. "_Stay... away... from... me_," he said scathingly. "From _us_."

"What's this about?" Adam Nelson asked, coming up behind his daughter. His eyes narrowed when he registered Jack. "Are you harassing her again?" he asked. "You've been told to stay away from her after the way you treated her."

"After the way –" Jack started to defend himself, then realised it was pointless. Whatever Ali had told her father, her father had believed – which he realised dully was how it should be. He remembered how his step-mother hadn't believed him when he had tried to tell her about Patrick Wesley... he shook his head of the memories. Idly, he wondered what Ali had told her father – probably that he had tried to seduce her, forced himself onto her, disrespected her values, blah, blah, blah. Ali couldn't be reasoned with – she truly thought she was on some kind of mission – and the only thing they could do was up their security and do their best to ignore her. "You're disgusting," he said, and he turned to walk away.

"_I'm_ disgusting?" Ali asked indignantly. "The things that trollop does – and _I'm_ disgusting?"

She said this in a tone that sent a shiver down Jack's spine – like she knew something she couldn't possibly know. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

Ali smiled smugly. "That's for me to know and you to find out," she said primly.

Jack took a step towards her, his instinct to grab her and shake what she knew out of her. Adam took a step in front of Ali, and Jack backed down. Getting into a fight with the man over his mentally unstable daughter was not worth the hassle – and not something he wanted getting back to people. At the very least, he could back down and be secure in the fact that he had been the better person.

Ali's words haunted him. _The things that trollop does – and _I'm_ disgusting?_. She could have just guessed – hell, ninety percent of the women in the world were trollops in Ali's books – but there had been a tone in her voice that suggested it wasn't just about guessing – it was about knowing.

He got home, left his car in the garage (like hell were he or Gabrielle _not_ leaving it in the locked garage anymore) and made his way to the side of the house. It was cluttered – less than a meter between the house wall and retaining wall meant that it wasn't much good for anything but storage, and Gabrielle had a _lot_ of accumulated crap – and Jack stepped over bits and pieces, making a mental note to get rid of some of it. Someone needed scrap metal, right?

It didn't take him long to realise what he had suspected – that Ali had found a means of spying on him. He had always figured that the neighbours not being able to look in was enough; he had never imagined that he might have a mentally unstable ex who would creep around, spying on him with his new girlfriend.

Fifteen years ago, he had been raped and made to feel like his sexuality wasn't his own. That feeling started to creep back. He felt judged, dirty, used.

He dropped to his knees and threw up.

* * *

"You OK?" Gabrielle asked Jack over dinner that night. He had been picking at his food all through dinner; she was starting to feel insulted. Her cooking was excellent, everyone said so.

"Fine," Jack said. Gabrielle have him a pointed look. "I spoke to Ali today," he admitted.

"And you thought you would achieve... _what?_" Gabrielle asked sarcastically. In her experience – thankfully, all vicariously, mostly on TV – people who broke into their ex boyfriend's houses and trashed their new girlfriends bedrooms and destroyed all their stuff weren't the kind of people you spoke to and reasoned thinks out with. She was being as upbeat about it as she could manage, but she knew it would be a long time before she felt safe in her own home again – and there were some things that could never be replaced.

"Don't be like that," he said. He had no stomach for Gabrielle's _I told you so_s. He well and truly wished that he had never gone to see Ali. If nothing else, then he would still be in ignorance of the fact that she had been spying on them – watching them in bed together... He stifled the urge to throw up, or make a face. He couldn't tell Gabrielle what he had learned – it would only make her even more upset, and achieve nothing positive. "I think she thinks she's on some crusade or something – eliminating the evil of the world, one non-Christian at a time. Her dad looked at me like I was some kind of wife-beating rapist – I have no idea what she told him." Well, actually, he did, and it wasn't like he really _cared_ what Adam Nelson thought of him, but it still infuriated him that she could slander him like that, and think she was absolutely in the right doing so.

"Listen," he blurted out. "It's my ex's birthday this weekend, in Canberra. I wasn't going to say anything 'cos I didn't want to throw another ex at you, but – Tanya's the nicest woman, you'll love her, and I reckon we could both do with a couple of days away."

"But – work," Gabrielle protested, floored by Jack's sudden suggestion.

"Frank will give us time off – well, just me, 'cos you already have the weekend off," Jack pointed out. Having your house broken into by a jealous, deranged ex certainly scored you sympathy points. "If you don't want to go 'cos it's an ex, that's fine. Hell, we can go somewhere else. I just thought of it 'cos it would be good to get away."

"Jack, Canberra's fine. I'm just surprised, that's all. Is this one of your uni mates?" she asked.

"Kind of. Tanya was my mentor."

Gabrielle's eyes sparkled, intrigued. She had never been the jealous type – quite an achievement, given what Steve's infidelity had done to her self-esteem – and the idea of meeting the woman who had shaped Jack as both a doctor and a man piqued her interest hugely. And she had never been to Canberra, despite the fact it was only a slight detour from the way she went between Sydney and her family farm. Hell, maybe they could even squeeze a side trip in – Jack hadn't met her dad and brother yet. And he was right, they _could_ do with a few days off. "Sounds good," she agreed.

* * *

In her apartment, Ali fumed. So he loved her, did he? And thought she loved him? _Let's see how much she loves him at the first sign of trouble_, Ali thought viciously. He was about to find out that Gabrielle was the fair-weather type; no way would she stand by a man who was in serious trouble with the law.

Of course, once he had seen Gabrielle for the flighty, disloyal woman that she was, Ali had no doubt that Jack would see the error of his ways and come back to Ali - and she would make it all better for him. She would be the _only_ one who could make it all better for him. Ali smiled triumphantly at the knowledge. Jack would be in deep trouble, and it would be only her word that could get him out of it. That harlot wouldn't have much to offer next to _that_, would she now?

Calmly she went over her plan. When she had broken into Jack and Gabrielle's house and trashed Gabrielle's room, she had left the rest of the house untouched, including Jack's room – except for his trash basket. She had known from her nocturnal visits that they used condoms – and now she knew why, ha! – and that had formed a vital part of her plan. Neat thing that he was, it was no trouble to retrieve the used condoms out of the trash – conveniently wrapped up in tissue paper, as if he had been expecting her.

_Expecting her_. Ali liked the sound of that.

She undressed, and gripped the dildo she had recently purchased – _so_ shameful, having to enter a store like that, but a necessity. She knew she couldn't pull this off without some decent evidence, so the dildo was needed.

She tensed her entire body, anticipating the pain. She knew it would hurt, but it had to be done. Steeling her resolve, she gripped the object tighter as thrust it inside her with as much force as she could muster.


	5. Chapter 5

"It's my favourite publicity-shy surgeon," Abigail Martin greeted Jack was surprising warmth, given how publicity-shy he was and how frequently he bad-mouthed the press – _to_ the press. If he wasn't so un-hypocritical in his dislike of the press (wanting publicity for his 'sexy', career-enhancing surgeries and getting pissed off when the press reported his various indiscreet affairs, like Richard Craig) he would be thoroughly unlikeable. But he was a warm, intelligent man who got on well with Abigail so long as nothing he said made its way into _The Scene_.

"It's my favourite tabloid hack," Jack said with a slight smile on his face. He thought social magazines like _The Scene_ were a waste of resources, and didn't think much of Abigail's ambitions if she thought being a 'photojournalist' (tabloid hack, more like it) was a good career, but liked her well enough as a person so long as she didn't use anything he said as fodder for the publication. "Abigail, this is my girlfriend, Gabrielle," he introduced Gabrielle to Abigail.

Abigail shook her hand and introduced herself. "I've heard a lot about you," she said. "Apparently you're the longest NUM the All Saints ED has had under Frank Campion, and the only one who knows how to handle him."

"Flattering her will not get you an interview," Jack said. "She cares about publicity about as much as I do. Which is zero." Abigail had the decency to look sheepish that her subterfuge hadn't worked. But he stopped to converse with her for a few minutes before moving on to find Tanya.

"I can't imagine you being friends with a reporter," Gabrielle said. Jack's possessiveness about his privacy and a reporter's ingrained inquisitiveness seemed to be two personality traits on a collision course.

Jack laughed. "Abby's alright once you establish that you will not be a subject matter," he said. He didn't add that he had given Ali too free reign when it came to talking to Abby and other _Scene_ reporters about him. Thankfully, while other reporters weren't like that, Abigail had the ethics not to go against Jack's dislike of publicity just because it wasn't actually Jack doing the talking. He stopped to kiss Gabrielle, not for the first time thinking how different she was to Ali, and how much he loved her because of it.

He found Tanya. As usual, she was surrounded by colleagues, sycophants and admirers. He stood back, waiting for her to notice him. It always amused him to watch how hard some people worked to get her attention and how easily he could get it. He had first met her when he had been seventeen and she had been thirty, and she had been his mentor in more ways than one. He respected and admired her, but not sycophantically, which Tanya loved.

She hugged him warmly. "I'm glad you could make it," she said. He had already sent his apologies a few weeks ago, explaining that he had ended one relationship awkwardly and was in a new one and didn't want to complicate it further by throwing another ex at Gabrielle. _Gabrielle Jaeger_. Tanya had heard of her, of course. She was the longest-running All Saints ED NUM under Frank Campion, and it was common knowledge that she could handle him best – better even than that institutionalised saint of the hospital, Terri Sullivan. And more importantly, she was Jack's housemate and good friend – and now his girlfriend. Well, she approved. He had seemed more settled for having her in his life, and she had a reputation for being smart, loyal and a steadying influence, both personally and professionally. God knew, she had to be an improvement on Alexis Nelson. Tanya had disliked the girl on sight and disliked her even more after she had done some digging. So she had been delighted to find out that he had dumped her and started seeing Gabrielle instead, and done her best to get over it when Jack had explained he didn't want to throw another ex at Gabrielle so soon – let alone someone as highly esteemed as Tanya.

So she had been delighted when Jack had called again, explaining that they could both do with a break and that they would be coming after all. And explaining _why_. Tanya had refrained from saying _I told you so_, but her instincts had flared instantly when she had met Ali. From then on, she had mentally thought of the girl as 'Britney' after the pop star's somewhat hypocritical brand of Christianity and hadn't been entirely surprised that she possessed such a demented sense of ownership. She was keeping an eye on the girl – and her father. She had plenty of connections in high places, and was confident that Adam Nelson would be able to reign his daughter in if he knew how exposed he could become otherwise.

But that was only to be used if Jack couldn't handle himself. He had been very insistent on that regard, and she had to respect him for it. No self-respecting man wanted it known that he couldn't handle his own shit, and needed a woman to bail him out.

Tanya smiled warmly at Gabrielle. "I've heard a lot about you," she said.

Gabrielle blushed to think that Tanya Gregova, one of the country's – even the world's – leading surgeons, knew who she was. "You know how to handle Frank, and you know how to handle Jack – and believe me, _I_ know how difficult they can be to handle," Tanya said knowingly.

"You've got that right," Gabrielle agreed, laughing. She couldn't believe she was trading jokes with Tanya Gregova.

"I like her," Tanya said later to Jack in Russian. His Russian was almost as good as her English, and it galled all the other doctors, the way they would carry on private conversations like that – not just at this party, but at everything Jack went to because of Tanya. Many a doctor senior to Jack had been infuriated by their closeness which went way beyond the professional.

"I thought you would," Jack said. Part of what had attracted them to each other over ten years ago was that neither had much tolerance for pretentions and sucking up, though they both worked in an industry where both things were par for the course. He had hoped Tanya and Gabrielle would like one another. For one thing, it made _his_ life much easier. They were the two biggest influences in his life, and he wanted them to like one another.

"And Rebecca, she likes her, too?" Tanya asked. Jack nodded. "Good. She didn't like Ali much, did she?" Jack shook his head. It seemed that no-one had liked Ali much, other than him, he admitted to Tanya. "Maybe you should listen to your friends more," Tanya suggested. It wasn't a particularly heavy admonition. Jack didn't know it, but she had known from their first kiss that he had been sexually abused. He had never cared to talk about it, and she had never pressed him, but she had gathered that his interest in someone so different to him and so objectionable to everyone else had stemmed from the appeal of the wholesome, happy Christian image she projected. The understood that the man had to sort through his own demons, and from the looks of things, he was doing that quite well.

"I'm trying," he said. Then he added, "I miss you. Between Caroline and Ali, I forgot how much I like being around you."

"Well, keep seeing Gabrielle. She's good for you. And doesn't seem like the jealous type. For all that she has a right to be," she added without thinking.

Jack stared at her quizzically for a few seconds. That sounded suspiciously like she knew about Gabrielle's involvement with Steve – and that Steve was a compulsive womaniser and drinker. "Tan, have you been checking up on me again?" he asked. Tanya looked suitably guilty. She was like a possessive mother sometimes, always wanting to know if this or that girl was good enough for 'her' boy. If he was seeing someone, then chances were, she had already looked up on them. Jack was kind of touched that she cared, although he knew Gabrielle would be creeped out if she knew how much Tanya knew about her.

* * *

"I like her," Gabrielle said later that night when the party was over and they were heading back to their hotel.

"Good," he said. "Tan doesn't exactly inspire confidence in women's abilities of themselves."

Gabrielle laughed at that. "I can see why," she said. A gorgeous, brilliant woman who was in the top of her field with men half her age again? And yet she couldn't feel insecure about it. She trusted Jack implicitly, and realising that gave her a warm, comfortable feeling inside. "Can I subtly mention this to Bart when we get back? He'll be spewing that you know Tanya." His slavish adoration of Frank was a source of amusement to everyone in the ED – and a fair chunk of the hospital – and Frank barely ranked as a minor player compared to Tanya.

Jack laughed, pleased that Gabrielle liked Tanya and didn't feel the least bit insecure over her. "If you want," he said. "But I can't see you being subtle about anything."

They got back to their hotel and had sex. Afterwards, lying in each other's arms, Jack said, "Look, Frank will give me a few more days time off if I ask it, and technically, you don't even have to ask for time off – I was thinking, why don't we go down to the farm for a few days? It would be good to meet your dad and see where you grew up."

Gabrielle chuckled. "I haven't even met _your_ dad or where _you_ grew up – and that's in Sydney," she pointed out.

Jack made a face. "You don't want to meet my dad," he said. "Ask Charlotte."

"Already did," Gabrielle admitted. Something had told her that if anyone knew anything about Jack's life before he had started studying, it would be Charlotte, and she had been right. Jack had (somewhat reluctantly) introduced Charlotte to his father when he had come to terms with her pregnancy, giving her strict instructions not to get out of his sight, or better yet, not to let go of his hand. Charlotte being Charlotte had disregarded both rules, and Ned had hit on her, complete unfazed by the fact that she was carrying his first grandchild. (He might have been more respectful had Charlotte been carrying a legitimate grandson, Charlotte had added; an illegitimate granddaughter that wouldn't be carrying on the Quade name was no use to him.) "Do you really want to meet my dad and brother this way? On their turf? You think you can handle that?"

"Yeah, I do," Jack said. He thought about what he had been through in his life and meeting his girlfriend's dad, even on his turf, seemed like a breeze. Besides, he had avoided meeting parents all his life, and he figured it was about time he grew up and made a commitment like that to someone he loved as much as he loved Gabrielle.

* * *

Ali had engineered to be taken to All Saints. She wanted to bring the war right into Jack and Gabrielle's turf. By the end of the day, there wouldn't be a person in this hospital that wouldn't be talking about them. Jack would have to leave the hospital – maybe even the city, to take a new job. Ali had given it some thought. She wasn't that keen on moving to a country town, but maybe Melbourne. Melbourne would be nice; lots of shopping. The thought of married life with Jack in Melbourne took her mind of what she had done to herself.

"Female, about eighteen, possible rape victim," Heath Vega called as he brought Ali through. Cate stood back, shaking with rage and disgust at the lengths Ali would go to. She knew as certainly and instinctively as she knew how to breathe that Jack wasn't capable of this kind of violence. She remembered when she had been doing drugs with Jo, how many times he had taken her home and seen her into her house and turned down the advances she made on him while drunk and high. He had very strong ethics when it came to sex and wasn't about to sleep with someone he knew wasn't in a position to consent; no way then was he capable of the kind of violence needed to inflict the kind of injuries on Ali that she had.

Zoe recognised the girl immediately. Ali had conscripted a young man from the bible studies group who had a huge crush on her, and just as warped a sense of Christian values as she did. When he heard what Jack had wanted her to do, and how he was still following her around, he was only too happy to smack her around the way she needed to make her claim look convincing. She had bruises along her arms and legs that could only have been inflicted by a man with a strong grip, and cuts and bruises along her face.

She was, in short, a mess, just as she had intended on being.

Zoe's internal red flags went off immediately. Despite her distressed appearance that should be garnering her plenty of sympathy and outrage, Zoe knew as instinctively as Cate had that the girl was up to something. But she had to treat Ali nonetheless – she suspected Ali had engineered her way to All Saints for that reason, and Zoe knew she could give Ali no reason to say the team had behaved unprofessionally to protect one of their own.

She wondered if Ali knew Jack wasn't in Sydney – technically wasn't even in New Soul Wales. She doubted it. Whatever Ali was up to, Zoe bet that it banked on Jack being in Sydney. He couldn't exactly assault a girl from several hundred kilometres away, could he? Most people weren't even aware that Jack was out of town. Zoe had quietly given her permission for him to take a few days off, because she knew if it got out that he was getting time off to go to a birthday party for none other than Tanya Gregova, it would create some tension. She wondered how Bart would react to find out that while he had been doing extra shifts to make up for being one doctor down, Jack was hobnobbing with the most elite of the country's medical community. So Zoe had figured it was best to let him go quietly and have people figure he and Gabrielle had taken a few days off together after the break-in. Which meant there was a very real chance that Ali had no idea Jack and Gabrielle had taken off.

But that was thinking into the future, and she had to handle the situation now. "I'll deal with it," she said to Charlotte, because she didn't trust Charlotte to be professional in this situation – she didn't trust anyone to be professional in this situation, but Charlotte in particular. She and Jack were very close, and Charlotte would be likely to exacerbate Ali's assault trying to shake the truth out of her.

The police were called and Ali told them what had happened – or at least her version of what had happened. Her ex-boyfriend, she said, had been furious when she had broken up with him because he had been pressuring her to have sex with him – she was a strong Christian, see, and didn't believe in sex before marriage. For weeks now he had been following her, stalking her, threatening her and today – today – she burst into appropriate sobs at that point, before continuing on with her store. He had come to her apartment and used his superior strength to force himself in – and force himself into her. He had raped her, and raped her violently, and she had bucketloads of evidence to prove it.

Zoe had to admit, the evidence was pretty damning, and if she didn't know Jack and know for a fact that he hadn't been in Sydney to do it even if it _had_ been capable of it, she would wholeheartedly believe in Ali's story. But that's exactly what it was – a story made up by a vicious, vengeful girl who had broken into their house to destroy Gabrielle's possessions and thought that was perfectly acceptable.

"Zoe," Cate said quietly. "They've done the rape kit. It needs to be sent to pathology, but it looks like there's plenty of, uh... physical evidence."

Zoe nodded slightly. 'Physical evidence' was Cate's euphemism for semen. Her brow crinkled, trying to think. It was common knowledge that Gabrielle had tended positive for an STI – Zoe wondered now if Ali had somehow been behind that piece of information getting out – and Jack had risked his health too much already with his promiscuous behaviour last year to take any risks now – especially since Steve was hardly the most trustworthy of people. He would have insisted on using condoms until he knew they were both clean.

Had Ali's breaking into the house and trashing Gabrielle's things been a front to steal used condoms for the evidence she needed? Zoe shivered at the thought. She hadn't realised just how dangerous Ali was.

"You can't seriously think Jack could do this?" Cate asked indignantly. She remembered Beth Chandler with a shiver. She had been one of the few people who had never thought Vincent capable of doing what Beth had accused him of, but it hadn't been until she had blown up Jessica's car that others had started believing in his innocence. And Beth's madness had only ended in her death. Cate shivered to think where this would end. She would never wish upon anyone what Beth had put her and Vincent through, and she certainly wouldn't wish it on as sweet and genuine a couple as Jack and Gabrielle.

"Of course I don't," Zoe said.

"Then why are you going along with her?"

"I'm giving her the rope to hang herself with," Zoe said grimly.

* * *

"Is the bastard that did this to me here?" Ali asked Zoe shortly after.

"If you mean Doctor Quade, no, he's not," Zoe said with cool professionalism as she took Ali's vitals. She had given the rest of the team strict instructions that only she was to treat Miss Nelson.

"Where is he?" Ali asked. She decided she hated Doctor Gallagher. She wondered if Jack had ever had a thing with her.

_Canberra_, Zoe longed to tell Ali, and blow a hole in this stupid, vicious story of hers. But she held her tongue, knowing that the longer she gave Ali to spin her web of lies, the more she would say on the record, and the less she could retract when she discovered for herself that Jack hadn't been within a hundred kilometres of her when the so-called rape had happened. "I don't know," she lied.

"Probably hiding from the police," Ali said loftily.

"Maybe," Zoe said, as coolly professional as she could manage. What had Jack been thinking when he had gone out with this manipulative, sociopathic demon?

"You don't like me very much, do you?" Ali challenge.

_Was it that obvious_? "I don't know you," Zoe said.

"Yeah... but you don't like to think that one of your own could have done this," Ali insisted.

"Miss Nelson, if you have a problem with your treatment, by all means, file a complaint," Zoe said. "I can arrange to have your follow-up care at another hospital, if you wish. I believe St. Angela's is closer to your home."

Ali looked like she was about to say something – maybe along the lines that she shouldn't have to go somewhere else to suit her rapist – but stopped herself. _Probably figures it looks bad for rape victims to pick fights with the ED staff_, Zoe thought. "I think I'd like to talk to the police," Ali decided.

"I'll arrange that for you," Zoe said. She turned from Ali and walked towards the staff base, a smile playing on her lips. Filing a bogus report was a crime, she knew. So was defamation. She wondered what kind of a trust fund Miss Nelson had.

* * *

In a farming community close to the Victorian border, Jack and Gabrielle were blissfully ignorant of the storm Ali was raising against them in Sydney. Jack was a city boy born-and-bred, but he could certainly see why people preferred this kind of like to the one he knew. The peacefulness would drive him batty within a week, he knew, but he could still see the appeal. And watching Gabrielle laugh at him while he failed to ride a horse (OK, so maybe he wasn't trying as hard as he could have) was worth all the falling on his ass and acting like a skittish seven-year old rather than a confident twenty-seven-year-old. And he had to admit, for all that he _thought_ he knew the best markets and butchers in Sydney, nothing beat vegetables that had been picked from an organic garden an hour ago and a chook whose neck had been wrung that day.

"He's doing well," Russel Jaeger said with something approaching approval; after all, Gabrielle was his only daughter, and as such, no man would ever _quite_ be good enough for her. "For a city boy."

"Go easy on him, dad. He wants you to like him."

Russel smiled enigmatically. He _liked_ that Jack wanted him to like him; he liked that he was trying to make a good impression. But he wasn't about to say that. "What's his family like?" he asked. Gabrielle filled him in; didn't get along with his dad and strived to be a better man then the alcoholic womaniser who had sired him, but adored his half-sister by his mother. "That's good," Russel said approvingly. You could tell a lot by a man by the way he treated his female relatives; one only had to look at the way his own son Ben admired his big sister to know that.

"Where is Ben?" Gabrielle asked, picking on her father's thoughts.

"At the Warren place."

Gabrielle grinned. He and Caitlin Warren had been the best of friends from the cradle – he was only a few months older than Caitlin – and lately he had been spending an awful lot of time at the Warren farm. Gabrielle wondered if love was in the air and made a mental note to tease him about it. She wasn't too old to tease her kid brother about his love life. "Invite her over for dinner," Gabrielle suggested. It would be good for Jack to meet her too, while he was here.

So the five of them had dinner together. Caitlin had grown a fair bit since Gabrielle had last seen her, which served to remind her that she didn't spend as much time here as she should do. She was an attractive young woman who was as eager for Gabrielle to like her as Jack was for the Jaegers to like him – except Caitlin had the edge in that she had known Gabrielle growing up.

"I like your family," Jack said to Gabrielle in the evening. Liked them enough, and wanted Russel's approval enough to agree without a fuss to Russel's direct of separate bedrooms.

Gabrielle noticed the wistful tone in his voice. He would have liked a family of that growing up, she knew. Well, he was welcome to share hers – and they seemed to be happy with that arrangement. Gabrielle remembered how her dad had never liked Steve and how much he liked Jack. And Jack liked him just as much. _Well, maybe you'll be seeing more of each other_, she thought.

"I'm glad we came," Jack said a few days later when they were heading back to Sydney – as much as they both wanted to, there was no way they could take even more time off. "I feel like I know you better now. I feel like I'm more of your life."

"Good," she said. She hadn't realised until now just how important it was to her that Jack and her dad and brother liked one another. "I'm glad we took this time out. I needed it."

He smiled at her. She definitely looked happier and more at peace then she had when they had left for Canberra a week ago. Maybe it was simply a case of picking up a few childhood things to redo her room with, hell, maybe it was just knowing that he and her dad liked one another, but she was happier. And that was worth everything. "Let's go home," he said.

* * *

"She's not changing her statement?" Constable Hugo Joseph shook his head. Ali's claims about Jack made no more sense to him then they did anyone else who knew the guy. And he had gotten the short straw in charging Jack, too. The doctor had never forgiven him for shooting Travis Knight. "And she's not delusional, or confused, or hysterical?" Zoe asked. Hugo shook his head. _That_ was the strangest part. The partner or former partner was always the prime suspect in a rape case, and if Ali had been the least bit confused Hugo wouldn't have doubted that she honestly _thought_ Jack had raped her. But she was perfectly calm and lucid, so calm and lucid that had it been any other guy, Hugo would have believed her.

Zoe smiled at that. Ali had signed a police statement saying Jack had raped her and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that she was perfectly aware of what she was doing, thinking and feeling. That wasn't something she could take back after she realised the trap she had set herself by not thinking to check that Jack would be in Sydney when she was accusing him of such a heinous crime. Zoe smiled grimly at that. Ali had gone to the length of breaking into their house to steal used condoms, but she hadn't thought to make sure Jack was in Sydney.

Hugo looked at Zoe in confusion. The woman seemed almost smug for someone who was looking at a colleague and friend facing rape charges with a mass of evidence stacked against him. "I'm going to have to take him in," he said. "I don't suppose you know where he is? He's not at home."

"And of course if a doctor isn't at home, they're at work," Zoe said dryly. Hugo had the decency to look embarrassed at that assumption. "He's in Canberra," Zoe said. "At least, he was a few days ago. He was there for a friend's birthday – you might have heard of her, Tanya Gregova. Since Gabrielle's family only live another hundred kilometres or so from Canberra, they figured they'd make a side trip. They haven't been in Sydney for the past week."

Zoe spoke those words with a certain amount of glee, and Hugo understood what she was so smug about. "She made the whole thing up without realising he wasn't in Sydney to do it," he said slowly. "But – how –?"

"Remember the break-in?" Zoe asked. Hugo nodded, and Zoe explained. She felt a little bad informing the police office of such details, but it wasn't like everyone in the hospital wasn't already aware of the story – Ali had made sure of that when she had insisted on coming to All Saints when most rape victims would have wanted to give the place their alleged rapist worked a wide berth. She had done it to blacken Jack's name – although what Ali hoped to get out of it, Zoe wasn't sure. No doubt it had made perfect sense in her demented mind, though.

Well, she had finally slipped up and there would be no backpedalling. _I wonder how much is in her trust fund_, Zoe thought. Defamation suits could be expensive. "You can go, if you like," Zoe offered. "Go verify what I've just told you – it shouldn't be too hard to find a few dozen witnesses to tell you Jack was in Canberra when he was allegedly committing rape in Sydney. Go on, get. He hasn't forgiven you for shooting Travis, yet. He's likely to punch you when he hears the news. It'll sound better when it comes from here."

Hugo was grateful to go.

* * *

"_What?_" Jack asked with barely concealed rage when Zoe broke the news to him on his and Gabrielle's return to Sydney. The charges had been dropped before Jack had even been formally charged because, as Zoe had predicted, it had been easy enough to find dozens of witnesses, including Tanya Gregova herself, to say Jack had been in Canberra when he had allegedly been committing rape in Sydney. "Why the _fuck_ didn't anyone tell me about this?" he said this looking directly at Zoe, although Frank and one of the hospital's lawyers was there, too.

"I thought it would be for the best if you had no idea what was happening and were far away from Sydney," Zoe said calmly. "I thought you'd react exactly the way you're reacting know, wanting to tear into her, and then she would have backed down when she realised her mistake."

"I'm going to kill her. I'm going to rip her fucking head off so she can't do this again," Jack swore.

Zoe raised an eyebrow. This was _exactly_ why she hadn't wanted to contact Jack. "Do you have a lawyer?" the All Saints lawyer asked, meaning a personal one, not one that he was covered with through the hospital should he ever be accused of malpractice.

Jack glared at him. "I went to AUMEL, of course I have a fucking lawyer," he said.

"Jack, watch your mouth," Zoe told him. "It's not his fault."

Jack tried to calm down, which was hard, given that he had left to get away from his ex-girlfriend who had broken into his house and come back to find out she had accused him of rape – and done a pretty damn good job of it, and he could be in jail _right now_ if she had seriously overlooked the fact he hadn't even been in Sydney at the time. He shivered at the thought. He knew rapists were way down the bottom of the food chain in prison, and he knew what it was like to be sexually assaulted. "Yeah, I have a lawyer," he said softly, immediately calmed down into child-liked terror at the thought of what could have happened had Ali been able to succeed. What had she thought to achieve out of it? That he would marry her in return for not going to prison? He shivered again at the thought of the lengths she was willing to go to.

"Then I suggest you contact them, and get the ball rolling for a defamation suit," the lawyer said. "My understanding is the Nelsons are quite a wealthy family."

Jack nodded. "She got her trust fund last year. When she was eighteen," he added, though it wasn't much relevance except that the money in the trust fund was Ali's outright, albeit with conditions as to how it got doled out. "I don't know how much it is, but it's enough for her to live very comfortable – five grand a month or so. And the apartment's in her name, too." His eyes glinted at the prospect. Ali had a lot to lose, and after what she had put him through, she deserved to lose it.

He left the office and wandered into the tea-room where Erica was reading what looked suspiciously like a copy of _The Scene_. "Can I have a look at that?" he asked.

"Sure." Erica handed it over. There was a pregnant pause. Everyone knew about Ali. Of course, she hadn't believed from the beginning, but there had been plenty that had – there were always plenty of people prepared to believe the worst about even the most decent of people – and Jack hadn't exactly done himself any favours with his promiscuity last year. Of course, all those people were now saying they had believed in Jack all along – but the damage had been done. "I just want you to know, I always thought Ali was full of crap," she said.

Jack smiled weakly. "Thanks," he said. Hell, at least there was one good thing to come out of this – his true friends would be winnowed out. He bet most people had been happy to believe in his guilt. He clenched his teeth, wishing that he had been there to defend himself, scream from the rooftops that he hadn't done it, that he would never do something like that. But maybe Zoe was right – maybe he had been best too far away to have done it. God knows, him screaming his innocence wouldn't have made anyone believe him. But he knew that people like Erica and Dan would have, and it soothed him a little.

He flicked to the front of the magazine for the contact details. He called the chief of staff, who put him through to Abigail. "Abigail," he said. "You still want that interview? Forget _The Scene_, this will get you in the _Sydney Morning Herald_."

* * *

"You stupid girl!" Adam Nelson screamed at his daughter. He couldn't believe he had raised someone so completely lacking in discretion and common sense. Had she really believed she could get away with a bogus claim like that? And had he really thought that she was mature enough to have her trust transferred to her name? Now she had a significant sum to lose in a defamation case – and since she had chosen to take the case to Jack's hospital, defaming him in the eyes of his colleagues, some of the most highly-esteemed members of Sydney's medical community, it was a case that she was bound to lose.

He looked at her furiously. What kind of a spoilt brat had he raised? Why couldn't she have left well enough alone? He failed to see that he had raised her to believe she was entitled to anything that she set her heart on including Jack Quade.

He had known the man was beneath her. He couldn't believe Ali had put everything on the line to pursue him – and seriously overstepped all known boundaries doing it. And now she stood to lose everything – all of which he'd given her.

"I thought he was in Sydney..." Ali explained weakly. She had been cursing herself ever since she had found out. Her perfect plan, foiled by the fact he hadn't even been in the city. And now she couldn't take it back; she had said to too many people, perfectly coherent, that Jack had raped her, including a signed police statement. _Damn them all_, Ali thought. She knew that smug blond doctor that had first treated it was behind it somehow – must have known that Jack wasn't in Sydney, since she was his boss. And had stood there and done nothing.

Ali hated them all. But she didn't hate anyone more than she did Gabrielle.

Because of Gabrielle, Jack had broken up with her. Because of Gabrielle, her dad was furious at her. Because of Gabrielle, she stood to lose everything she had. Her apartment should be safe, but what was the use of a place to stay when she had no money to support the lifestyle that she was used to? She would have to _work_. Work like some common tramp, like – like – Gabrielle, or Louise Campbell. She had no qualifications. She would have to be a cleaner, or a waitress. She shuddered at the thought.

As if reading her thoughts, Adam said, "Don't expect me to support you anymore. I've given you plenty – and you've blown it all with your stupid plan – and all over a man who isn't worth it."

"He is too," Ali said. "He just needs to see it."

Adam looked at her despairingly. What kind of idiot girl had he raised? You couldn't make a Christian out of someone like Jack. He and his new girlfriend deserved each other. If only Ali had worked that out from the beginning. "I'm done with you," he said. "Do whatever you want. You always have before. That's why you're in this mess." And with that he stormed out of the apartment – the apartment that might be the only thing she had left once Jack was done with his defamation lawsuit.

Ali was left alone, simultaneously heartbroken and furious. It had all gone wrong. But she wasn't about to just lie down and take it. Jack wanted to take everything from her – her reputation, this comfortable life that she was so used to. Well, she would just take everything from him in return.

* * *

"How are you feeling?" Caroline asked Gabrielle in the newly-fortified house. Kirribilli House probably didn't have the same amount of security that Jack had installed. He was with his lawyer, going over the lawsuit he planned on springing on Ali, so Caroline had taken the opportunity to catch up with Gabrielle. In all the scandal surrounding first Ali's rape allegations, then the knowledge that she had made it all up – for what purpose, no-one knew, except maybe to punish Jack - people had focused on Jack and forgotten Gabrielle.

Abigail Martin had taken up Jack's story with a vengeance, and gotten her byline in the _Sydney Morning Herald_. If there was one thing people loved more than a good scandal about a highly-esteemed surgeon stalking and raping his ex-girlfriend, it was finding out that the ex-girlfriend had gone to some lengths to fabricate the whole things. There was nothing quite as interesting as a so-called pious Christian fallen from grace and all the people who had been the first to denounce Jack were now saying how awful Ali was. And completely forgetting that Ali had been targeting Gabrielle as well. "I'm as well as can be expected," Gabrielle said, somewhat ruefully, given that in the last two weeks her house had been broken into, her possessions trashed and her boyfriend falsely accused of brutal rape – and all because of a twisted, vengeful ex. "Thanks for coming over," she said. "I really appreciate it. And I appreciate what you did for Jack. God, I can't believe that you and Rachel were the first to come to his defence." It was a grimly amusing irony.

Caroline smiled. "How could I not?" she asked. "I understand better than most that he isn't capable of something like that. He broke up with me rather than pressure me into sex, remember? I've never met someone _less_ likely to force the issue. And whatever happened between him and Rachel, she must know that, too."

"Jack was sexually abused as a child," Gabrielle found herself saying. "It's why he is the way he is about sex – and consent. It goes against everything he believes in to force a girl. He knows too well how humiliating it is."

Caroline whistled softly. "I had no idea," she said. Though it made a lot of sense – his fierce determination to prove himself, his gentleness and respectfulness around women, his ingrained homophobia, last year's promiscuity. She felt a twinge of guilt for not trusting him now that she understood what had driven him. But Gabrielle was so much better for him, so if it had led him down the path that had eventually ended with Gabrielle, well, that could only be fate.

"It's not exactly something he advertises," Gabrielle said. "I'm not sure he would have told me had I not found out for myself – he had some pretty bad nightmares when he first moved in. But it's part of why he is the way he is. He can't stand the thought of ever being like the guy who did it to him." She smiled ironically. "Ali's struck him the hardest she possibly could, and didn't even realise it. Most other things, he would have just let go, but this – he'll sue her for everything she's got. And from what I'm hearing, her dad's furious and she's got no other qualifications other than being a spoilt rich bitch. She'll have to support herself on welfare, or being a waitress." Gabrielle's eyes glittered in a rare spirit of vengeance at the thought of Ali, having finally slipped up, losing everything she held dear – namely, her holier-than-though reputation and her comfortable lifestyle for which she didn't have to lift a finger. She would have rather Ali never having come into their lives in the first place, but at least now she could be satisfied that the girl was getting some of what she deserved.

"At least now she's exposed herself," Caroline said. "She can't do much more harm."

Gabrielle frowned at that. "I'm not so sure," she admitted. "The thing with Ali is that she's got quite a sociopathic personality. She has no sense of right and wrong other than what _she_ things is right and wrong by _her_. Breaking into someone's home and destroying their things is a perfectly fine means of competition for her. Every time I think she's gotten a low as she can get, she sinks to even worse depths."


End file.
